


The Place Beyond

by superblackmarket



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Zombies, Cop Rick, M/M, Motorcycles, Rickyl, Road Trips, assorted flora and fauna, love and romance and a smaller dash of angst than usual, rick and daryl are around 30 and carl is a baby, stunt rider daryl
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-11
Updated: 2016-09-04
Packaged: 2018-08-08 00:47:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 37,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7736566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superblackmarket/pseuds/superblackmarket
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a feeble effort to to rebuild his marriage, Rick takes Lori to the carnival when it comes to town. He watches a death-defying motorcycle act and finds someone new instead. </p><p>OR</p><p>Daryl returns to his hometown and a new acquaintance gives him reason to stay a little bit longer. </p><p>-</p><p><em>He linked the past with the present, and the eternity behind him throbbed through him in a mighty rhythm to which he swayed as the tides and seasons swayed.</em> – Jack London</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. the world's edge

**Author's Note:**

> Another multi-chapter novella-length fic! This story is complete and will be updated every couple days as I revise the chapters.

 

They wandered the brightly lit fairground, his arm draped loosely around Lori’s thin shoulders. “You want anything?” he asked.

She smiled tightly. “No, thank you.”

“D’you wanna ride the ferris wheel?” he said, half-joking, but she pursed her lips and shook her head.

“I’d hate to get stuck at the top.” Gently, she disengaged his arm. “I’m going to find the bathroom.”

“Want me to go with you?”

“Just stay here. I’ll find you.” She patted his shoulder and disappeared into the crowd.

It was ten o’clock, and the fairground was becoming rowdier. Fewer families, more adults. Beer cans and red plastic solo cups littering the pathways. Brightly colored lanterns, music blaring over the sound system, screams from overhead as the rollercoasters zoomed past. The noise was deafening. He sighed and checked his watch again. They had told the babysitter 12:30, and it would be a shame to cut the evening short. But if neither of them were enjoying themselves…

He heard a roar of an enthusiasm from one of the nearby tents. He scanned the crowd; no sign of Lori yet. He drummed his fingers against his thigh. Another roar from the tent. Shrugging to himself, he made his way inside, jostling through drunk fairgoers until he could see what was at the center of the ring.

A spherical metal cage sat under the Big Top. Somewhere he heard an engine rev. Then an announcer’s voice, amplified over the PA, cut through the din. “And now, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, get ready to be rocked by the motorcycle mayhem of…” The engines revved louder and he resisted the urge to clap his hands over his ears. “…Madcap Mack and the Heartthrobs!” Two motorcycles tore into the ring, the riders identical in their leather jackets and black helmets. “Watch as they defy centripetal force… in 3D!” A third rider followed them, and the screams and cheers reached a fever pitch. “Watch as they ride their motorcycles upside-down—within inches of each other!” the announcer howled.

The first two motorcycles rode into the cage, where they began making long, lazy loops up and down the sides of the sphere. The third rider paused, revving his engine again. Face hidden beneath his helmet, he had a pair of angel wings appliqued to the back of his jacket. Then he gunned it, guiding his bike inside the cage and narrowly sliding between the other two. The first two stunt riders picked up speed and began to circle the horizontal circumference of the sphere. Rick’s stomach lurched. It had been years since he had taken physics, he didn’t understand how they could be _sideways_ like that… Then the third rider sprang into action, weaving between the other two as he made _vertical_ circles, going faster and faster. Rick’s heart was pounding so rapidly he could hardly breathe. The man with angel wings made it look easy, but he knew it wasn’t, it was a death-defying act of bravado and the three of them would collide mid-air any second…

By the time they began to slow, fear had turned to exhilaration. His breath came in deep, heavy gulps. The other two riders left the cage and the third performed his finale, a slow loop inside the sphere as the bike leapt from one facet of the cage to the other. The crowd went wild. “Let’s hear it for Madcap Mack and his Rough Riders, folks!” the announcer yelled. Rick combed his hair back with shaking fingers. He felt giddy, breathless, like _he’d_ been the one on the motorcycle. He’d experienced his share of chases, with blaring sirens and trip wires and drawn guns, but being a cop had nothing on _this._

Lowering his hands, he caught sight of the watch on his wrist. 10:35. _Shit._ He pushed and shoved his way out of the tent. Lori was standing a few yards away, her phone clutched in her hand. He didn’t have time to concoct an explanation. Catching sight of him immediately, she stormed over. Her face was livid.

“Where the _hell_ did you go?” she demanded. “I’ve been standing here for twenty minutes, I called you three times, I texted you—”

Rick took his forgotten phone out of his pocket. Three missed calls, two voicemails, five unread text messages.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I went to see what was going on in there—” he gestured towards the tent “—and I got caught up. I’m sorry, Lori, I had no idea so much time had gone by.”

“I was worried,” she said, putting her phone in her bag and rubbing her temples. “You disappeared, I couldn’t get ahold of you… God, Rick, I was about to call Sh—” She cut herself off abruptly. Their eyes met, and Lori looked away first. “I was afraid something had happened to you,” she finished.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, because he couldn’t think of anything else to say. He felt like he’d left his stomach behind in the tent. His body was hollow, buzzing, keyed up on second-hand adrenaline.

“What was in there, anyway?”

“Hm?”

“What was in there?” Lori repeated impatiently. “In the tent?”

“Motorcycle thing.” He gestured vaguely. “Stunt riding.”

“You hate motorcycles,” she reminded him. “Because they’re always speeding and they ride between the lanes.”

He couldn’t think of anything to say in reply. He _did_ hate motorcycles, at least he used to hate them.

“Are you drunk?” she asked sharply, cutting through his fog.

“ _No_ ,” he said. “I haven’t had anything since the wine at dinner.”

She was still frowning. “You’re acting awfully strange, Rick. Are you feeling alright?”

He nodded.

“I think we should go home,” she said. “It’s getting kind of wild here, isn’t it, and I wouldn’t mind getting back early. Six hours is a long time to leave Carl with a sitter.”

“Sure,” he said. “Of course.”

Lori went straight to bed after they paid Beth and checked on Carl, claiming a headache. He apologized again before turning out the light. He hadn’t meant to spoil their evening, and they’d both been trying so hard lately. Lori told him they could talk about it in the morning, and turned to face the wall.

He lay beside her in the dark. All night, he was plagued by dreams of falling, jolting awake over and over, just before the moment of impact 

*

Down at the station the next afternoon, Ford asked to swap graveyard shifts. He’d take Rick’s tonight if Rick could take his next Thursday. Rick agreed readily: this way he could spend the evening with Lori and Carl, try to make up for last night’s behavior. He’d pick up a couple steaks from the supermarket and grill them out back so Lori wouldn’t have to cook. He thought about Carl sitting at the table in his highchair, kicking out his plump little legs, and smiled to himself.

But as he was getting into his car, he hesitated.

Moments later he was back at the station, quickly exchanging his uniform for the spare set of civvies he kept in his locker. Then he jumped in his car and drove, not towards home but towards the fairground.

The grounds were quieter tonight. Under the last rays of sunlight, the booths looked a little dingier than they had last night, the tents a little more threadbare. The colored lanterns looked garish instead of bright and festive. He stopped at a burger stand felt a pang of regret for the steaks he’d meant to grill. He pictured Lori and Carl at the table without him, Carl mashing his soft baby food with a spoon and Lori picking at a salad. Throwing away his burger half-eaten, he ambled along the main street and surveyed the attractions. He remembered being taken to carnivals as a kid, his father had paid for him to sit on the back of an elephant named Olka. Funny that he still remembered the elephant’s name, after all these years.

A little before eight o’clock, he found himself in front of the Big Top again. The Rough Riders, or the Heartthrobs, whatever they were called, had two shows tonight. There was no use pretending he had any other reason to be here. Fleetingly, he wondered when he’d grown so bored with his routines that it took a motorcycle act, of all things, to set his pulse racing again. Lori was right, he didn’t even _like_ motorcycles. They were too noisy, they didn’t follow the rules of the road, he ticketed more speeding drivers than he could count…

He was able to claim a space closer to the front tonight, with a clear view of the sphere. He could feel his palms sweating in anticipation; surreptitiously, he wiped them on his jeans and shoved his hands in his pockets. The announcer, a tough-looking sonuvabitch with stringy grey hair, started to work the crowd, but Rick was listening for the telltale roar of the engines. When Madcap Mack and the other two appeared at the far end of the runway he didn’t join in the cheers. Instead he stared at the impenetrable black helmets, wondering what kind of men were under them. Were they old and grizzled like the emcee, or were they wild punks, too young and reckless to realize what they were risking?

The three riders performed the same act as the previous night. Up close it was even more heart-stopping; they avoided collision so narrowly that their shoulders brushed in passing. He was weak in the knees by the time they left the cage.

Outside the tent, he breathed in grateful lungfuls of the cool night air. When he was steady again he set off around the perimeter. He needed something to keep him occupied until the ten o’clock show. He thought vaguely about trying to win Carl one of those gigantic teddy bears from the shooting booth, but the games were all supposed to be rigged, weren’t they, and Carl already had plenty of stuffed animals.

Around the back, he saw a tall figure surrounded by a group of children. When the figure straightened up, he saw leather and a familiar pair of angel wings. His stomach swooped and he edged closer.

“Me next! Me next!” the kids were chanting, shoving scraps of paper at the rider. Rick watched him sign each one with painstaking attention, to the delight of his young admirers. “Okay, scram,” he said in a low raspy drawl once everyone had gotten an autograph. “Get on back ta yer folks.” Still shouting excitedly, the kids dispersed. His back still to Rick, the rider plucked a cigarette from behind his ear and lit up with a great cloud of smoke. Then, like he knew he was being watched, he pivoted around to face Rick.

With messy brown hair strewn across his face, he was a rough-looking man. He had broad, powerful shoulders and slender hips. Jeans clung to muscular thighs, and like his riding leathers, his work boots had seen a lot of wear. He was balanced lightly on the balls of his feet, practically vibrating with contained energy, and Rick knew that posture, it was a man ready to fight at a moment’s notice, to throw a punch first and ask questions later.

“Hey,” he said.

“Sumthin ya wanted?” the man said. Rick made out a glint of blue between the unkempt strands of hair.

“I liked your act,” he said awkwardly.

The man exhaled a jet of smoke, not bothering to direct it away from Rick’s face.

“You’re Mack, right?” he pressed on.

“Aint no Mack here,” the man said shortly. Suddenly Rick noticed he was twirling a butterfly knife in his left hand. He had long blunt fingers, deft on the blade of his knife.

“You from King County?” Rick asked. “Your accent sounds mighty familiar.”

The man closed his knife with a snap. “Long time ago,” he said, after a moment. “Who’s askin?”

“My name is Rick. Rick Grimes.” Rick stuck out his hand, and after a long beat of hesitation, the other man took it. His palm was hard and calloused, and he let go quickly. “So Mack’s a kind of stage name?” Rick said.

The stranger shrugged. “Somethin like that, Kojak.”

Rick stared at him in amazement. “How did you know I’m a cop?”

“You are?” His reaction was almost comical; he took a step back and eyed Rick warily through his bangs.

“What? You said it like you knew,” Rick said defensively.

“Aintcha seen the TV show, one with the lollipop cop askin all the—didn’t mean you actually _was_ a cop—”

“I’m off-duty,” Rick interrupted.

“Huh.” The man snorted. He dropped his cigarette butt and ground it out with the toe of his boot. “Been nice talkin to ya, Kojak.” He disappeared back inside the tent.

Rick didn’t try to follow him. Instead he took off prowling the grounds, with another ninety minutes to kill before the late show. It was like he’d switched off part of his brain, the part that made decisions and evaluated consequences and took stock of what the hell was actually going on. He was on a peculiar kind of autopilot, his brain filled with motorcycles and angel wings and the blue glint of not-Mack’s eye through his hair.

As it turned out, the shooting booth wasn’t rigged. He’d always been a good shot, one of the best on the force, and three consecutive bulls-eyes won him some kind of gigantic plush dinosaur. Brontosaurus, he thought vaguely, or maybe stegosaurus. Carl was too young to know what a dinosaur was, but Rick had had gone through a phase and if heredity was anything, Carl would, too.

He felt foolish, lugging the stuffed animal around the carnival with him. “You should’ve gone for the teddy bear,” the man at the Heineken stand told him sympathetically as he handed Rick a cold bottle. “Got my girl the pony, and she asked if I could _exchange_ it.”

“It’s for my son,” Rick explained absently. Carl would be long asleep by now, all snuggled up in his crib, with his rattle and stuffed snake and the quilt Lori’s mother had sewn for him. He felt a spike of longing so powerful he nearly doubled over on his barstool.

“You good?” the man asked him doubtfully. Rick nodded, mumbled something about indigestion, and got to his feet. He couldn’t sit still anymore, the need to _move_ was coursing through his body. He wondered if Lori had gone to bed yet. Probably not. Maybe she was watching a movie, one of those romantic comedies she only watched when he was gone. Or maybe she was—

He slammed the door on that line of thought. Trust. He had to learn to trust her again, Lori had stipulated, or what was the point in trying?

At five minutes to ten, he joined the crowd thronging to the Big Top. Word must have spread; he heard the spectators talking excitedly about what they were about to see.

The three motorcycles made their entrance with the usual fanfare. Rick fixed his eyes on the black visor of Mack’s helmet. He’d never been one for football, and took only a casual interest in baseball. But what he was feeling now, maybe it was how his friends felt about the teams they championed so vociferously and the players whose jerseys they wore on game days. The Rick Grimes of six months ago had been too wrapped up in his family and his job for that kind of distraction. He had his wife, his son, his best friend and partner on the force. But that man, that Rick Grimes, he didn’t exist anymore. He—

The third rider, whose name wasn’t Mack, had entered the metal cage. He rolled on the throttle as the other two began to circle above him, and then he plunged into the mayhem. It was so perfectly coordinated, they were like cogs in a machine. Round and round and round and—

Over the noise of the crowd, Rick heard the screech of rubber on metal, and a cascade of sparks rained down around them. There were gasps and screams, the woman beside Rick had covered her eyes with her hands—but nothing seemed to have happened, the three riders were still circling the sphere, they hadn’t crashed… Shrugging to release some of the tension in his shoulders, he trained his eyes on the angel wings flashing between the facets every time not-Mack crested the top and hung there for a millisecond, upside-down and impervious to gravity.

The act seemed to wind down more quickly tonight. The first two drivers left the cage and the third followed close behind, foregoing his usual victory lap. He _looked_ all right, sitting tall on his formidable black motorcycle as he raised a hand in acknowledgement of all the cheers and whistles, but maybe he’d been injured…

Rick didn’t have to think about it: his feet carried him through the crowd and out the tent and around the perimeter until he’d nearly reached the back exit. The sound of raised voices made him pause. He approached more slowly, the overgrown grass muffling his footsteps.

“Martinez ya stupid fucken prick! What’d I tell ya bout speedin up?” He recognized the voice as belonging to the man he’d sort-of-met earlier. Peeking round, he saw the three riders standing in an angry triangle, shoulders thrust back and heads jutting forward, like attack dogs. Fingering the officer’s badge in his pocket, he remembered the knife not-Mack had been playing with earlier, and wondered if he’d have to intervene.

“I didn’t speed up, Dixon, you fucking sped up!” The man addressed as Martinez unfastened his helmet and cast it aside. He was a muscular Latino who, to Rick’s trained eye, looked he spent hours in the gym. A shower, not a grower, Rick thought wryly; guys like that looked formidable, but they weren’t particularly agile on their feet. If it came to a fight…

“Martinez is right,” said the other, a powerful-looking black man with dreadlocks. “You sped up, Dixon.”

“Can it, Shumpert, you sycophantic sonuvabitch,” not-Mack ( _Dixon_ Rick corrected himself mentally) snapped. “You were fucken _slow_ tonight, asshole.”

“Chill out, Dixon,” Martinez said placatingly, with just enough condescension to make Rick’s hair stand on end. “Nothing happened.”

“’Cept you skinnin my goddamn leg,” Dixon growled. He unzipped his jacket and tossed away his helmet, not looking to see where it landed. “An’ now Officer Friendly’s here ta join the party,” he said suddenly, rounding on Rick. “What the _fuck_ ya want this time, Kojak?”

“I—” Rick hesitated but opted for the truth. “I came to see if you were hurt.”

“Don’t see how it’s none a yer goddamn business,” Dixon said, tossing the hair out of his eyes and cracking his knuckles threateningly. Aggression so potent it was nearly a parody of itself, but Rick didn’t underestimate its veracity. “Don’t think I won’t beat yer ass inta the _ground_ , even if y’are a _cop_ —”

Rick opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Dixon was only a few feet away from him now, tense and dangerous and ready to swing. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the other two men melt away. But he promptly forgot about them because Dixon had a fucking _face_ that immediately imprinted itself on his eyelids; it would be there, every time he blinked, even if he lived to be a hundred, because he’d never seen a face like that before.

Under his shaggy curtain of hair, Dixon was fine-boned and striking. Sure, his nose looked like it had been broken several times, and the skin around one eye was slightly puffy, but… Jesus Christ. His eyes were cat-eyes, narrow and slanted, a glittering stormy blue that twisted Rick’s guts. He had high-cut cheekbones, on the proud side of gaunt, and a rough coat of stubble couldn’t quite obscure the beauty mark, delicate and almost feminine, above his lip.

Rick stared.

Which clearly wasn’t what Dixon had been expecting; he shifted his weight uncertainly, the fight-or-flight impulses warring behind his eyes.

“Fucken _what_?” he said at last, but some of the antagonism in his voice had been replaced with confusion. Maybe even a spark of curiosity. He took another step closer. But suddenly he grimaced and reached down to touch his right calf.

His hand, when he removed it, was crimson with blood. “Aw, fucken hell,” he said disgustedly.


	2. some kind of nature

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for your response to the first chapter! It's good to be back.

In the end, Daryl let the cop drive him back to his motel. His leg hurt like a motherfucker and after that bust-up in the cage, he’d have to work his motorcycle over before he could ride her again. Three months on the road and he’d nearly had it with this carnival bullshit. One fleabag motel after another, Shumpert and Martinez strutting around like roosters, Joe skimming the cream off his due every payday. A regular source of cash was nothing to shit on, he knew that, but he was a _lone_ drifter, except for Merle, and Merle only sometimes, when he wasn’t locked up, and touring with the fair meant he was always surrounded by people. People shouting, people drinking, cursing, fucking, getting in his face all goddamn day until he was ready to knock their lights out, every last one of them.

He knew they’d hit up King County eventually. Maybe that was why he hadn’t quit and struck off on his own quite yet. He didn’t have much fondness for the place; he’d grown up rural, in the backcountry surrounding the pristine little suburb. But he’d learned how to survive in those woods, to track and hunt and gut a kill, and a part of him wanted to see if the old house was still standing after all these years. Maybe he’d burn it down himself if it was.

He was going crazy, little by little. Just that morning he’d woke at the motel with a girl in his bed and no fucking clue how she’d got there. Head throbbing like the devil; he’d gone toe-to-toe and glass-for-glass with Martinez the previous night, just to get him off his ass. He felt stupid and more than a little guilty, having to ask her what happened. _I was blowing you and you passed out_ she told him matter-of-factly, and he groaned, shielding his eyes against the sunlight. Then he’d got himself together and reached for his wallet, but she, offended, had informed she was _a fan, not a hooker._ He felt even worse.

The cop, Rick Grimes—Daryl didn’t know what he was after, a fuck or a suck or some other class of dirty shenanigans. He didn’t particularly care. He’d seen the wedding band and the sad hound-dog eyes and the stupid stuffed dinosaur and resolved not to get tangled up in _that._

“’S right off this exit,” he said, voice coming out like sandpaper. They hadn’t spoken since the cop gave up on making him go to the hospital. _Aint got the insurance_ he’d said flatly _an’ I aint payin fer some intern ta give me a band-aid, Kojak._ Hospitals reminded him of shit, shit he’d tried to forget a long time ago.

Grimes pulled into the parking lot of the Super 8. Daryl levered himself out of the car and started hobbling towards his room. He heard the crunch of the cop’s boots on the gravel but didn’t look back. Grimes followed him inside. It was a dingy little room; the flickering overhead light illuminated his meager possessions, strewn across the floor. His gun was safely tucked away, but his crossbow stuck out like a sore thumb and he saw Grimes’s eyes flick in its direction. “Gotta permit,” he growled. “Wanna see it?”

Grimes shook his head minutely. Daryl got lost in his eyes for a moment, they were big and blue and tired and sad, but there was just enough steel underneath to send a pleasurable shiver down his spine. The pain in his leg brought him back. He dragged himself onto the bed and pulled out his knife. Carefully he cut the leg of his jeans open along the seam, stopping at the knee. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the cop perch awkwardly against the desk. Gritting his teeth, he pulled the fabric, stiff and heavy with blood, away from his leg.

Grimes inhaled sharply but Daryl took in the damage impassively. There was an ugly gash about six inches long across his calf, and the skin around it had been scraped raw. Not bad, considering. Martinez coulda killed them all, the stupid bastard. “Hey Kojak, toss me that whiskey,” he ordered, and Grimes passed him the half-full bottle of Bulleit Bourbon. He poured a liberal quantity over the gash, hissing between his teeth as it stung something fierce. Then he wrapped his leg in one of the motel’s hand towels and secured the whole thing with some duct tape from his pack. Only then did he look up, and saw Grimes eyeing him skeptically. “Had worse,” he told the cop, limping into the bathroom to wash the blood off his hands.

Coming back, he hovered in the doorway. He was tired and sore and foul-tempered, but pain had always made him reckless. The cop had a strong square jaw and a regal profile; there was something about him that made Daryl think of the old Westerns with Paul Newman or Clint Eastwood. “Hey Kojak,” he said, because he’d noticed a muscle twitched in the cop’s jaw every time he used that nickname. “Whatcha want?”

Grimes was still leaning against the desk. Daryl didn’t miss the way his eyes flicked up and down his body, lingering on shoulders and hips and then back up to meet his gaze. “You were born here?” Grimes said, wrong-footing him.

He shrugged.

“I remember your brother,” Grimes said, and he felt his hands clench into fists. Everything always came back to Merle in the end, even when he was locked up a hundred miles away. Merle had a long fucking shadow. “Didn’t know Merle Dixon had a brother,” the cop added.

“Yeah, well, I aint got a record.” He stumped over to the bed and sat down, stretching his bad leg in front of him. “So you aint got nuthin on me, _Officer._ ” He took a long pull of the whiskey. “Jus’ passin through, anyway.”

“What’s next?”

“Fuck if I know. Macon, maybe.”

“Touring far?”

“Dunno.” He fumbled in the bedside table for a new pack of smokes and lit up. “Peelin off by Louisville, though.”

“Why Louisville?”

He wondered if this was what Grimes was like in the interrogation room. Measured. Relentless. “Cos I aint crossin my line.”

“Your line?”

“Mason-Dixon. Named it after me, ya know.”

“So you’ve never been North?”

“Fucken look at me, man.” He gestured with his cigarette—his ripped jeans, his beat-to-shit leathers, his fucked-up face. “Think I’d turn ta dust if I tried.”

“My wife and I had our honeymoon in Cape Cod,” Grimes volunteered. “That’s in—”

“I know where the fuck it is, I aint stupid,” he snapped, getting ash on the bedspread. If he had a dollar for every time people thought he was as illiterate as he looked, he’d be rich as Croesus.

“I know you’re not.” Grimes said.

“You don’t know shit about me,” he fired back, all he knew how to do was argue, even when someone was agreeing with him.

“You called that other guy on your stunt team a ‘sycophantic son of a bitch,’ that’s how I knew.” Grimes smiled, a nice smile, if he was being honest with himself. But Christ, the bastard was a talker. “We spent our honeymoon on Nantucket, actually. That’s—”

“Where the juice comes from,” he supplied.

“Exactly.” Grimes was still smiling.

If that was a pick-up, it was the strangest he’d ever had. He remembered those glass bottles of Nantucket Nectars; his momma used to buy them down at the store. When he was six, seven, he’d use em for target practice with his da’s rusty old Smith & Wesson six-shooter. Grimes was making him feel slippery, calling up these past associations. The cop was getting inside his head, and that was dangerous.

Grimes was saying something about whaling and _Moby-Dick_. “‘—the sea is his; he owns it, as emperors own empires.’ Ahab and Starbuck are both from there—”

“Do you ever quit talkin?” Daryl interrupted. “Cos it sure don’t seem like it.”

“It’s just conversation,” the cop said. He got up from the desk and walked over, grabbing the whiskey bottle. Daryl watched his throat bob as he swallowed. “That’s how people make friends, by talking.”

He reclaimed the bottle. “Friends,” he grumbled. “ _Jesus._ ’M on the road. Don’t need em.”

“Maybe _I_ do,” Grimes said. He blinked his big blue eyes and Daryl couldn’t say if it was flirtation or vulnerability. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. Friendship was always euphemism for something else. Fucking, sure. But also dependency, coercion, brutality. Anyone who had ever claimed to be his friend fell into one of those categories. _Friends._ Good Lord.

“Aintcha got yer own?” he said critically. “Good ol boy cop like you? Family man?”

“One person betrays you, soon enough the rest fall like dominoes,” Grimes said. He sounded bitter. Daryl watched the light reflect off his wedding ring. He didn’t feel pity; it just wasn’t something that he had. Not for himself, not for anyone. But he felt a flicker of compassion. And compassion didn’t mix well with one-night stands. He kept what he felt in his heart separate from what he did with his dick. Which was why the only people he’d ever loved (his ma, Merle, and Merle only sometimes) were related to him by blood.

“Headin out day after tomorrow,” he told Grimes.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Grimes said quietly. He took a step back. “So…”

“Yeah,” Daryl said. He glanced at the door, but the other man dawdled, shoving his hands in his pockets and looking about the room.

“Let me give you my number,” he said at last. “Just in case.”

“I already got your number,” Daryl said.

“You do?”

“Yeah. 9-1-1.”

“Oh.” Grimes laughed a little. “I meant my, you know. Personal number. Cell.”

Daryl watched him jot down a number on an old receipt.

“Just in case,” he said again. “Well… Goodnight.”

“Yeah,” Daryl said.

After the door clicked shut behind him, he half-expected the man to come back. But thirty seconds passed, and then a minute, and then five, and with a sigh that he told himself was relief, he decided he’d seen the last of Rick Grimes.

*

In the morning his leg was stiff and sore. He cleaned it, properly this time, with soap and water while he stood under the shower. Then he scrubbed the blood out of his jeans and spent a good half-hour stitching up the seam again. They were his best pair, the only ones without holes or patches, and he always wore them when he performed. Joe liked them to look presentable in the ring, not like the down-and-out drifters they really were.

He walked the few miles back to the fairground as the sun was coming up. His leg throbbed some, but it would hold. First he’d tune up his bike, make sure Martinez hadn’t fucked her up too bad. Then, as he’d done the past couple days, he’d wander about the grounds and see if any cars needed repairing or any engines needed tinkering with. Pull in some extra cash. He’d fixed the fucking ferris wheel the other day, though the damn thing could go to hell as far as he was concerned. He hated the music it played. _Video killed the radio star_ all day, all night.

He rolled his bike over to the temporary auto garage they’d set up and got down to business. The Triumph Bonneville was the most beautiful thing he’d ever owned. He’d put her together himself, starting with the rusted-out engine of an original T140 he’d bought off a mechanic in Decatur. Guy said the thing was a relic, would never run again, but over the years he’d switched out the faulty components. Put in some Scrambler parts, to give it better off-road capabilities. Big knobby tires that maybe weren’t the slickest to look at, but he could cruise down country roads that sent other guys spinning into ditches. That Bonnie was one of the few things he took real pride in. Folks were always trying to buy her offa him. He told em to go to hell.

After a thorough inspection, he decided to replace to replace the brake lines, which were a bit scorched-looking. Cigarette drooping from his mouth, he crouched down beside the bike and lost himself in the work. Bleeding the air from the brake systems was the trickiest part. The brake fluid got a little messy while he was compressing the pistons, but he managed to keep the levels up and the whole installation was completed quicker than he thought. Off in the distance he heard “Video Killed the Radio Star” drifting through the speakers, which meant the carnival had started up for the day.

He fumbled through the supply cabinet until he found the flask Joe thought nobody knew about. It was Jack or Jim or somebody shitty like that, but his nerves were jumpy. He wasn’t sure if he’d been relieved or disappointed when he woke up alone that morning.

_And now we meet in an abandoned studio_  
_We hear the playback and it seems so long ago  
_ _And you remember the jingles used to go—_

“Mother _fuck_!” he bellowed, throwing a wrench at the wall in frustration. He was gonna have to buy earplugs: one more day listening to this shit would send him around the fucking bend. Then he saw a small shadow dart through the door and disappear behind an old pickup truck.

“Hey!” he bellowed, stomping over. “This aint no playground. You best get the hell outta here before I—” He rounded the hood of the car and saw a little girl cowering there, her hands already raised to protect her head. It was a posture that sent him spinning back fifteen, twenty years, shielding his face from blows and lashes that had rained down on his shoulders anyway, no matter how small he made himself. “Ya can’t be back here,” he said, trying to take the growl out of his voice that half a lifetime of smoking had put there. “Lotsa dangerous stuff lyin around.”

She didn’t move. Just huddled there, rocking to and fro. He didn’t have much experience with kids, except for a vague sense of dislike. “Ya lost?” he said. There was no answer, so he added, reluctantly, “How bout I take ya back ta yer parents, huh?”

“No!” The girl rounded on him sharply. She looked to be about eight or nine with a thin, pinched face and big ol haunted eyes. He knew those eyes.

“Why not?” he said tiredly, squatting down so he wouldn’t tower over her. She flinched a little so he held perfectly still. He wasn’t the type to pat kids on the head anyway.

“My mom told me to _go_ ,” she explained in a tiny voice. “When my dad gets like that, she tells me to go and then she finds me again when it’s safe.”

There was a full-blown thunderstorm raging in his head. After years on the road, on the run, starting over and over and over—it all comes full circle with a cop who remembered his brother and a kid who coulda been him. He _knew._ He just knew. And she was looking up at him, not so afraid anymore, and he wondered if maybe she knew, too.

“Gotta name, girl?” he said.

“It’s Sophia.” To his surprise, she extended a small hand in his direction. “Very nice to meet you, —”

“Daryl,” he supplied, awkwardly shaking her hand.

“That’s a funny name,” she told him pertly, and he grunted.

“Redneck as they come, kid.”

He was at a loss for what to do next. When he ran away, he hid out in the woods, sometimes for days on end. Learning to hunt and forage because he had to, wiping his ass with poison ivy. Nobody had ever found him, and he’d never asked anybody for help. He loathed cops on principle and practice. But this wasn’t his life.

“Let’s get outta here,” he told Sophia. She trotted after him into the sunlight, taking his hand like it was the most natural thing in the world. His instinct was to jerk away, but he gritted his teeth, letting her twine her sticky little fingers through his calloused ones.

“How old are you?” she asked as they cut through the grounds.

“Round twenty-eight,” he said absently. There was a big fat policeman standing over by the gate, but Daryl didn’t like the look of him. Fucking porker. There was the information booth, there was… He’d always traveled at the periphery of the whole carnival operation, had no idea how the damn thing actually worked. He sighed. “C’mon,” he said, changing direction and leading her over to a payphone. He dug in his pocket for the scrap of paper that had been burning a hole there all morning. “Gonna need my hand back,” he pointed out. Sophia relinquished his hand and leaned against him, trusting as a small animal, while he sifted through his change and dialed the number scrawled on the paper.

Only two rings. “Hello?”

“Grimes?” he said.

“Yes, this is— _Daryl_?”

“Yeah,” he grumbled, feeling his face flush at the sudden eagerness in the man’s voice. “Need a favor,” he went on brusquely. “Need ya ta get ta the fairground stat, none a the bells an’ whistles. Can ya do that?”

“I’ll be right over,” said Grimes, businesslike. “Is something the matter? What’s going o—”

Daryl hung up the phone. “Friend a mine’s gonna sort this out fer us,” he told Sophia, feeling, if not pleased with himself, then confident he’d done something _proper_ for a change.

That feeling was short-lived.

He’d always had a temper; they were practically hereditary among Dixon men. But unlike his da and his brother, he’d found other outlets for his. Doing crazy shit on his bike, for one thing. No more drugs, but plenty of liquor when he felt like it, getting oiled-up and picking fights with men twice his size. Not exactly admirable, but he’d never hit a woman, never hit a kid, never started things with somebody weaker than him. Righteous anger, though—that was something new. It started in his chest and spread through his guts, cold as ice, when he saw the bullish man with the mean little eyes charging towards them, a frightened looking woman scurrying along in his wake. He didn’t remember doing what he did next. There was a ringing in his ears. Apparently he’d knocked the man out with one ferocious blow to the temple. No excess, no waste. Just one hit and that was it. The world came back slowly. The first thing he heard was the woman crying. Not the girl, though. She was staring down at her unconscious father with a kind of detached curiosity, and Daryl was proud of her. Then he felt the pain in his knuckles and the carnival crashed down around him again.

_You were the first one_  
_You were the last one  
_ _Video killed…_

Grimes showed up not long thereafter. They had a decent crowd of onlookers by then, and Grimes, who was in his tan police uniform, had to shoulder his way through the crowd. “Thought I said no bells an’ whistles,” he remembered saying to the man at some point, but even he knew it was too late for that. An ambulance came for the unconscious asshole, and Grimes escorted Sophia and her mother out of the fray. Eventually Joe turned up, shooting venom from dilated pupils, and started bellowing at him for assaulting a patron, _save it for afterhours you dumb hick._ And for taking off early last night, _how many fuckin times I gotta tell you? ‘After the show, help everyone dismantle.’ Then you can go get your dick wet and whatever the fuck-else you need to do._ It was when Joe said something about a two-week pay cut that he started paying attention.

That was when he quit.

“You can’t quit,” Joe hollered, even though he’d been threatening to fire him just moments before.

“I’m takin the bike too.”

“You can’t take the bike.”

“It’s my bike,” he said.

And that was when he realized he’d fucked up his life again, this time for a little girl who wasn’t kin to him and he’d probably never see again. He was one stupid bastard. One sorry bastard, too, without job or prospects or jack-shit to his name except a vintage motorcycle that he’d rather starve to death than sell.

He could see Grimes approaching, but he wasn’t in the mood to say thanks and listen to a near-stranger lecture him over his bad behavior. Or arrest him, Jesus, Grimes was a cop and could have him behind bars within the hour. So he took off in the opposite direction, speeding up when he heard Grimes calling his name.

 


	3. celluloid pictures of living

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the outpouring of kindness and encouragement. You're all just wonderful.

The Peletier case took hours to sort out. The woman, Carol, had been reluctant to press charges against her husband. She told Rick that her black eye and the finger-shaped bruises around her wrists were her own fault, accidents. Rick did his best, to no avail, and then Morgan tried too, with no greater success. This was the worst part of the job, he thought, the utter helplessness of trying to help people who weren’t ready to help themselves. A part of him wanted to go in there and shake Carol until her teeth rattled and demand to know why she was protecting that no-good lousy son-of-a-bitch husband instead of herself and her daughter. But he was helpless. Just as he and Morgan were about to give up and send them home, the little girl, Sophia, who had been silent the entire time, suddenly opened her mouth. And in a jumbled rush it all came out, the shouting, the beatings, the hidden bruises, the times her mother locked her in the closet when her father came home drunk. Rick was astonished; Carol looked equally surprised. But her daughter’s outburst seemed to change her resolve, and she agreed to consider her options. Sagging with relief, Rick turned them over to the social worker.

It was only then, after things had calmed down a bit, that he thought back to the reason he was here in the first place, eyes gritty with sleeplessness, writing up the Peletier case at his desk.

Daryl Dixon.

His heart accelerated at the mere thought.

The previous night had taken on the hallucinatory quality of a dream. He had lied to Lori. Gone back to the carnival and watched the motorcycle act, twice. Then he had driven Daryl back to his motel and followed him into his room. And then they had talked. Sort of. _He_ had talked. Had he really told a stranger about his honeymoon on Nantucket? And quoted at length from _Moby Dick_? He had, hadn’t he? He felt a blush creeping up his neck at the memory.

Daryl had said he didn’t want to be friends. And Rick, with an audacity he thought had dried up years ago, had nearly asked the man if he wanted to be something other than friends. It had been on the tip of his tongue. But then Daryl had looked pointedly at his wedding ring and taken the wind right out of his sails.

Rick was married. He was _still_ married thanks to his own stubborn pride. What the hell was he thinking? He had no business picking up strange men. He’d made his decision and he would abide by it. He was honorable, Lori told him so: _you’re too honorable for your own good, Rick. All these rules of yours…_

Besides, Daryl hadn’t been interested. Had he? Rick couldn’t get a read on him—that face gave nothing away. Daryl had just lounged on his bed, the picture of insouciance, while Rick stammered and stuttered his way through a flirtation that never got off the ground.

But Daryl had called him. _Grimes?_ he’d said in that gruff voice of his, and Rick had gone tearing out of the station like a bat out of hell. He thought Daryl might have gotten on the wrong side of the law, something like that. Not…

He pushed away from his desk and hurried down the hall, ignoring Morgan’s quizzical look. He was in luck. Sophia was sitting on a bench outside the social worker’s office with a coloring book in her lap, swinging her legs back and forth. Her mother was still inside.

“Hello Sophia,” Rick said, taking a seat next to her. She eyed him warily for a moment and then went back to her coloring. “Hello, Officer Grimes,” she said politely.

She was a delicate, bird-boned child, looking closer to seven than her real age, nine. She reminded him of Carl, in the way that all children reminded him of Carl these days. Carl was still a baby, of course, but that didn’t stop him wondering what kind of kid he’d become, what kind of teenager… He could only imagine the childhood Sophia had had. Stunted _._ But she was plucky, he thought admiringly, a real spitfire. “My name is Rick,” he told her. “You don’t have to call me ‘officer.’”

She nodded, still absorbed in her coloring. It was some kind of Disney-themed book; Rick thought he recognized a few of the characters. Sophia was giving one of the lions from _The Lion King_ a bright purple mane.

“Is Daryl here?” she said, raising the subject before he could.

“He’s not,” Rick admitted. “He disappeared while I was talking to you and your mom back at the fair.”

“But you’re his friend,” Sophia said. “Can’t you find him?”

“Oh, we’re not exactly—friends,” Rick said awkwardly. “I don’t know him very well.”

“He called you his friend,” Sophia insisted, giving a hyena green and blue spots. She certainly had an eye for the fanciful. When Rick was her age, he approached art projects with scientific precision. Everything had to look as it appeared in nature or he threw them away in disgust. “He called you to help us,” Sophia reminded him.

“I think I’m the only person he knows in King County. He’s just passing through, he said.”

“Can’t you make him stay?” Sophia asked.

“I wish I could.” Rick shook his head. “I don’t know anything about him.”

“ _I_ do,” the girl informed him smugly. “He’s twenty-eight years old and hates the song ‘Video Killed the Radio Star.’”

“That so?”

“And he can fix any kind of engine,” she continued. “His motorcycle is named Bonnie and he has seven tattoos but he only let me see one of them. He uses a lot of bad language and he had a mean daddy like mine but his is dead now. He can ride his motorcycle upside-down without falling and he—”

“What do you mean, he had a mean daddy like yours?” Rick interrupted. “Is that what he told you?”

“He didn’t have to,” Sophia said, supremely unruffled.

At that moment the door opened and the social worker, Sasha, poked her head around. “You can come back in now, Sophia. Oh, hi Rick.”

“Bye, Rick,” Sophia said, gathering up her coloring supplies.

“You take care, Sophia. 

*

The house was dark and still when he let himself inside.

“Lori?” he called, locking his gun away in the bureau. “Carl?”

At first there was no answer. Then Lori’s voice, sounding oddly muffled: “I’m in the kitchen, Rick.”

She was sitting at the table in semi-darkness, a duffel at her feet. Rick’s heart plummeted. Carl was asleep in his carrier, snuggled up with his favorite quilt.

Lori looked pale and wan. Her eyes sparkled with unshed tears. “I can’t do this anymore,” she said, in a voice pitched low so as not to wake the baby. “I’m sorry, Rick, but I can’t.”

“Lori,” he said. His feet were rooted to the floor.

“You said you would forgive me and we would move on, for Carl’s sake.”

He nodded, woodenly. That was what he had said.

“But maybe you can’t forgive me so easily. And I know we’ve both been trying, but god, Rick, it feels more like a punishment.” Her voice wavered and she bowed her head, letting her long brown hair shield her face a moment. Then she straightened and tucked her hair behind her ears. “We’ve been pretending, haven’t we? Pretending nothing’s wrong, when at the core we’re _rotten_ …”

He was having trouble digesting her words. _Pretending. Rotten._

“It hit me, the other night, at the carnival. When you weren’t there when I came back. I waited and I called you over and over, you never picked up… You’d vanished. I realized how separate we had become, how completely out of orbit we were with each other.”

He thought about the pair of wings appliqued to the back of Daryl’s riding leathers. How he had hung there, poised mid-air, at the top of the cage. Time stopped.

“I did a terrible thing,” she said, using her foot to rock Carl’s carrier gently. “And I was telling the truth when I said I regretted it, that I was never in love with Shane.”

Rick bristled at the name. It hadn’t been spoken aloud between them since Shane had transferred to Atlanta PD and disappeared from their lives entirely. They had agreed it was for the best.

“You’re a wonderful father,” Lori told him. “That’s something I could never reproach you for.” They both glanced at their son, still slumbering peacefully. “But you were so absorbed in Carl, I began to feel like you weren’t seeing _me_ anymore.”

He didn’t understand. Of course he could see her, she was right in front of him—

“It was like I was disappearing, turning into this _function,_ you know? Nursing him, bathing him, cleaning up after him. Not a person in my own right anymore, just Carl’s mother. Every day I was getting smaller and smaller.”

She hadn’t said any of that before. He was dumbfounded.

“Shane saw me. He saw me as someone who was desirable, someone—”

“So you fucked him.”

She flinched. “I’m not making excuses, Rick. I’m trying to explain why I’m leaving. Why it’s for the best.”

“There’s no reason you should go,” he said forcefully. “I forgave you.”

“Don’t you understand?” her voice broke. “This is _torture_ , trying to go on as if nothing happened. Maybe forgiving me seemed generous at the time, the right thing to do, the _honorable_ thing. I was grateful. That you would take me back in spite of everything I’d done. But now I’m bound by it, and you have so much power over me, with your self-righteous moral high-ground, and I’m not your equal anymore.”

“Lori, that’s bullshit.”

“It’s _not_ ,” she insisted. “You’re not doing it on purpose, I know you’re not. But that’s what it’s become, and I can’t stay in a marriage where I’m not an equal member, Rick.”

“I lost my best friend on your account,” he said. She _owed_ him, didn’t she see that? “I sacrificed _everything_ —”

“That’s just what I mean,” she said quietly. “We can’t live with it, either of us. And that’s the worst thing I did, taking Shane away from you. Maybe if I had been the one to leave, you could have forgiven him.”

“No.” He shook his head. “He’s gone. It’s done. It would be pointless for you to go too.”

“For both our sakes, I have to.” Her eyes, when they met his, were heavy with sadness. He felt a stirring of guilt, but then his temper got the better of him.

“You’re following Shane to Atlanta, aren’t you?” he said viciously. “Maybe you’d rather _he_ was Carl’s father?”

“ _No_.” The tears overflowed at last. She swiped them away angrily. “I’m going to my mother’s until I decide what to do.”

“If you leave, Carl stays here,” he said adamantly, taking a step closer. “That’s the deal.”

“Deal? He’s not completely weaned—”

“Then you’ll have to—”

“Rick.” She was sobbing now. “Rick, I’m not going to take your son away from you.”

Then she was on her feet and they were holding each other. She clung to him as her tears dampened his uniform shirt, and he stroked her soft dark hair. He was fighting the lump in his throat with everything he had but his eyes were prickling anyway. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I’m so sorry…” And she was echoing him, _I’m sorry, I’m sorry…_ They collapsed on the couch together. She clutched at his shirt, his shoulders, his hair. It was fumbled, hurried, her tears falling on his face and his on hers when they switched positions. Rick thought it was the saddest moment of his life. Then it was over and he was zipping up his slacks and refastening his belt as she pulled up her underwear and straightened her skirt.

He helped her carry her things to the car and buckled Carl in securely. He stared at his sleeping son’s face, knowing this was the moment their lives would change, change utterly. The great rupturing of everything he had worked for, everything he had imagined for the future. _Their_ future. He kissed Carl’s forehead gently and walked around to the front.

“I’ll call,” Lori told him, fastening her seatbelt. “I’m not going far, you can visit him while we sort out the paperwork…”

He nodded. His throat was so tight he couldn’t form the words to ask her to stay one more time. Their life together was flashing before him, like a montage from a corny film. Their first date at the Chinese restaurant where Lori had taught him how to use chopsticks. Lori in her prom dress, a vision in lilac chiffon. The tearful promises made before Lori went north for college and he stayed in Georgia to attend Emory. Their first real fight when they came home for Christmas, the semester they were broken up, the reunion and reconciliation over the summer. Lori transferring to the state university so they could be closer. Their wedding, just after graduation, and how radiant Lori looked coming down the aisle. He’d never been more sure of anything, saying _I do._ Eating lobster during their Nantucket honeymoon, Lori hadn’t been able to finish hers _oh god Rick it still has eyes._ The first happy years of marriage. Rick and Shane graduated from the police academy, and Lori talked about getting her masters in education. Then the difficult years, when Rick and Shane were rookies on the force, desperate to prove themselves, while Lori grew distant and withdrawn. The pregnancy had saved them; those nine months were some of the happiest they had ever known. Rick stopped going out with Shane and the others, lavishing all his attention on his wife. Lori bloomed like a rose. They painted the nursery together, Lori laughing and scolding when he spattered blue all over the floorboards. The birth itself had been difficult, sixteen excruciating hours of labor, Lori white with pain and clutching Rick’s hand hard enough to make the bones creak, before the obstetrician told them she would have to perform a C-section, there was no other option. And then Rick was holding Carl, howling and bloody and outraged at finding himself in such a vast, terrifying world. Lori took a long time to recover from the surgery, and Rick spent those first days spellbound with wonder at the miracle that was his son. They inhabited their own private bubble, he and Carl, a nation of two… He didn’t like to remember what came next. Shane. Lori. His outrage and utter bewilderment at their betrayal. But he was determined to do right by his family, for Carl’s sake, and so he cut Shane loose, his best friend of more than twenty years, and tried to forget. He was dutiful, he took what solace he could in Carl’s obliviousness to the pall that had fallen over their lives. Sometimes when he came home from work Lori looked like she had been crying, but she still greeted him with a bright smile and a home-cooked meal and regaled him with stories of what Carl had done that day. She was trying, and he tried too, he took her to the carnival when it came to town…

Rick watched Lori drive away, taking with her the last vestiges of the life they had embarked on together.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know Daryl was glaringly absent from this chapter, but he'll be back in the next. Which will be up tomorrow! 
> 
> I'll be posting 3-4 chapters every week - I'm not going to commit to specific days (sorry!) because my schedule's a bit wild, but I'll keep em coming.


	4. kings of the wild frontier

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised, the Return of Daryl. Thank you a thousand times over for all your thoughts and insights on the previous chapter.

Daryl veered off the road, plunging into the trees. It was a new forest, thousands of tall thin pines standing cheek by jowl, growing a bit too regular and orderly to be natural. He guided the Bonnie between them with reckless abandon.

It was the opposite of how he usually moved through the woods: silent, deliberate, blending in with the flora. Be daft to scare up a ruckus while he was hunting. But he’d built up a big head of steam over the past couple days, and he was blowing it off in the only way he knew that didn’t involve drinking or fighting.

_You aint got me yet, da._

He should’ve known any kind of homecoming would be a shit-show. He was a Dixon, and Dixons had always been part of the King County landscape, like a particularly insidious strain of weed. They never had anything going for them, none of them; they should’ve packed up and moved on years ago. But they were just too stubborn to uproot. Lord knew the law had tried on multiple occasions.

Rick Grimes, Sophia—everything fell away as the trees flashed by, faster and faster. The wind whipped through his hair and the powerful engine roared between his thighs.

Nearest thing to freedom.

Suddenly he heard another engine and spotted a red ATV through the trees. It was plotting a parallel course, as if in unspoken friendly competition. He scoffed. ATVs weren’t shit. He rolled on the throttle and blew the other rider away.

An overhanging branch opened a scratch on his cheek but he didn’t slow. The trees were thinning and he nearly plunged over a precipice, managing to catch himself at the last minute with a lucky swerve. He braked hard. His perch was overlooking a grassy clearing adjacent to the main road. A stocky black man was struggling to load the ATV into the trailer behind his pickup. Daryl watched contemptuously. The man finally got his ATV stowed. He climbed into the cab of his truck and drove in a big circle around the clearing, coming to a stop just underneath Daryl.

He leaned out the window. “Can I give you a lift?”

Daryl thought about it. They were a good thirty miles out from town, and the Bonnie was running low on gas. The man had a broad, open face and didn’t look too city-slicker. Daryl shrugged and nodded. He climbed off his bike and rolled her down the hill. The stranger jumped out of the cab and helped him load her into the trailer beside the ATV.

“Name’s T-Dog,” the man said once they were on the road.

He snorted. Stupid name. “Daryl.”

“Daryl what?”

He stared out the window and drummed his fingers on the armrest. “Dixon,” he offered, reluctantly.

“Any relation to Merle?” T-Dog asked.

“Brother,” Daryl grunted. He waited for T-Dog to offer some kind of statement on Merle’s character; people round these parts had strong opinions when it came to Dixons. But T-Dog just nodded.

“Don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone ride like that,” he said. “You some kind of racer, stunt guy?”

Daryl shrugged dismissively.

“You’d think you could make that work for ya,” T-Dog said.

“You’d think,” Daryl said, drily.

They didn’t speak until T-Dog pulled up in front of the motel. “Thanks, man,” he said, opening his door.

“You’re staying _here_?” T asked incredulously, taking in the dilapidated Super 8 with its peeling paint and broken sign feebly flashing _vaca cy_.

“Temporarily,” he said. He’d stayed in much shittier places than this. The old Dixon place made the Super 8 look downright homey.

“Just passing through, huh?”

“Naw. I’m…” he hadn’t thought about it til the words sprang to his mouth unbidden. “…transitionin back in.” _The hell you are_ the smarter half of his brain told him. _What the fuck you wanna stay in King County for? You blew this shithole ten years ago._

“Whatcha doin for work?” T-Dog wanted to know.

He looked around. There was a supermarket, a post office, a hardware store, a library, a strip mall… _Fuck all_ he thought. Maybe Joe would take him back if he asked nice and groveled a bit. But Joe was a coked-up old bastard and he’d had it with Martinez and Shumpert, worst pair of assholes this side of the Mississippi.

“You know your way round an engine?”

He scoffed. “I do.”

“I’m looking after a little service station back down Washout Road,” T-Dog said. “Belongs to an old guy named Dale. He’s off roadtripping with his wife, hired me to keep the place afloat while he’s away. Problem is, I don’t got much more than the basics and business is picking up, you know, folks bringing in all their fancy cars. I could use a skilled worker like you. Good people. At least, that’s what you seem like.”

He considered the offer. He could fix damn near anything; hell, he could build an engine from scratch. And working with cars would sure beat _video killed the radio star_ all day.

“Did I catch you at a busy time or something?” T-Dog said wryly.

“Guess I could have a look at it,” he allowed. He’d seen the little gold cross hanging around T-Dog’s neck and didn’t want the man thinking he was any kind of Christian charity case. _He_ was doing T the favor, bailing out his ass, not the other way around.

“Great!” T-Dog beamed, starting up the car again. “Got this kid named Glenn in Atlanta, he takes care of the books remotely. Real computer whiz. Dude don’t know shit about cars, though.”

Daryl _hmm_ ed.

“I’m Atlanta myself,” T went on. “Worked security, drove the church van for United Methodist… Don’t mind it out here, though, even with the commute. Suburbs is nice. And Dale said I could put some miles on his ATV. Practically a holiday for a guy like me.” He turned down a cul-de-sac and stopped the truck in front of a well-maintained little service station. A car was parked in each bay; T hadn’t been kidding about the backlog. Even so, it was a tiny place. Daryl hopped down and had a look round the yard. A mangy-looking little dog came racing over, barking madly. It jumped all over him, leaving muddy paw prints on his jeans.

“Billie! Down!” T commanded, and the little dog trotted over to him, wagging its tail. “Found her out here one morning, poor thing was starving,” he told Daryl sheepishly. “Fed her, so she sticks around…” He unlocked the shop and the dog trotted in after them. Daryl looked around. There was a decent if modestly outfitted garage. An office off to one side. A couple chairs.

“This is it,” T-Dog said. “Like I said, small joint. Dale’s more-or-less retired, man only takes what he feels like taking. So I can’t promise you a ton of hours or anything, but you can keep looking for other gigs in the meantime.”

“Sounds like fucken poverty,” Daryl said. He could probably get all the cars out there running in a day or two, what then? Even the carnival paid better.

T-Dog sized him up. “I could maybe offer you a place to stay,” he said hesitantly. He led Daryl outside and around the back, where a trailer was parked. “Dale got a new RV for his trip and didn’t get round to selling this one before he left,” he explained.

Daryl opened the door. The RV was surprisingly well-equipped. Fridge, stove, bathroom, seating booth, double bed at the back end.

“It aint much,” T said, apparently taking his silence for skepticism. “New one’s a lot roomier, but this un, it aint bad. Probably beats that shithole you been staying at… Dale’s always kept it real clean. He’s a good man. I don’t think he’d mind me offering it to you. Slept in here a time or two myself, when I was too tired to drive back to Atlanta… So, yeah. If this is helpful to you, you’re welcome to it.”

“I aint suckin yer cock,” he snapped, hackles rising out of nowhere.

“Damn, son, I aint suggesting we bunk up here together!” T-Dog exclaimed. “No, just thought you could save some money, ditching that fleabag.”

“Right,” he said, narrowing his eyes.

“C’mon man, don’t look at me like that,” T-Dog chuckled. “Just tryna help a brother out. All’s I’m asking in return is you get those fancy-ass cars out there up and running again. Fair?"   
  
He folded his arms. His gut was telling him the man was honest, but trusting folks didn’t come natural to him.

“You aint much like your brother,” T said. He bristled, but the man kept talking. “Gone all these years… maybe you didn’t get on with your family?”

He shrugged.

“I didn’t get on with mine, either. Different. Seems like you were different, too?”

He shrugged again, but T-Dog seemed to take it as agreement.

“I knew it when I first saw you,” he said. “Birds of a feather… Wanna flock?”

Daryl had half a mind to knock T-Dog’s block off. Both his hands were curling into fists at the man’s fucking insolence. But then T-Dog started laughing, deep belly laughs that made his whole face crinkle up in mirth. “ _Damn_ you’s a touchy bastard,” he said, wiping tears from the corners of his eyes. “ I’m just fuckin witchu. Gotta learn to relax a bit.”

“Shoulda stuck with the church wagon,” he growled, making T laugh harder. “Gotta go back ta the motel, get my shit,” he added. T-Dog was a puzzle to him. Folks laughed at him all the time, for his appearance, his grammar, his rough manners. T hadn’t quit laughing while he was mouthing off, but for some reason, Daryl didn’t feel like he was being laughed _at_. It was more like T was trying to invite him in on a joke, if he could only unbend enough to laugh, too.

Merle would have been livid. Dixons weren’t supposed to be friendly with blacks, let alone work for them. But he’d done plenty of shit these past few years that would send Merle through the roof. Right on cue, his mind conjured an image of Rick Grimes. Big eyes, soft lips, _my wife and I had our honeymoon in Cape Cod._

T-Dog handed him a big set of keys and left him to it. The dog, Billie, followed at a discreet distance as he wandered the premises. It was okay, he decided, he could make it work. 

*

After dark he closed himself in the little bathroom and stripped down to check himself for ticks. He made a habit of avoiding mirrors so certain things always caught him off-guard when he was confronted with his appearance again. He’d got kind of skinny, now that he wasn’t drinking so much. His shoulders had always been broad but his torso tapered into boney hips that he thought looked a bit silly, sticking out the way they did. His muscles were lean, hard and sinewy. Except for his arms, those muscles were almost ostentatious in the way they rippled and bulged, courtesy of the 150-lb draw weight of his crossbow. Not that he got any satisfaction from it. Twisting to and fro under the flickering fluorescent overhead, he saw only the burn marks, the badly healed injuries, the blasted minefield of his back. He plucked a tick off his shoulder and dropped it in the toilet. Had to drown them or burn them; weren’t no other way of killing the little bastards. When he was small his momma used to check his hair for him, carding through his snarled locks with gentle fingers. In the trees around their house, there was probably a wood tick for every human being on earth. The first heat brought them swarming out of their hatch nests. They filled the grass and flung themselves off leaves and trees toward the supersensory scent of mammals. After his ma was dead they moved even deeper into the woods and then nobody bothered to check his hair for him. But soon Merle was helping him add more foreign substances to his bloodstream, and the little shits seemed to go off him after that. Like they could tell he wasn’t entirely human anymore.

He ran his hands through his shaggy hair and worked all the way around his hairline but he didn’t find any more ticks. Just pine needles. He leaned his elbows against the sink and splashed cold water on his face. It was a relief, being alone again. No more motel rooms with their thin-paneled walls, the sounds of his neighbors arguing, fucking, watching TV bleeding into his space. No more Martinez and Shumpert, no more Joe. No more rowdy carnival crowds. No more accidental people in his bed.

He could’ve gone for a cold beer but his old man had been an alcoholic and he was pretty sure he was one, too. Drinking and fighting felt normal out on the road, in the kind of company he kept. But drinking felt different now he was back in King County. A wild night and a strange girl in his bed was like he was proving something to Merle. Having a few drinks on his own wasn’t just unwinding from a long day, it was becoming his da. He used to think it was inevitable. But after ten years gone he’d started to think maybe not.

He was almost twenty-eight. Left home at seventeen feeling like he was already living on borrowed time. The next seven years were a black hole in his memory and he’d been ready to call it quits, speed jive don’t wanna stay alive when you’re twenty-five, all that shit _._ He was doing some pretty heavy drugs in those days. But then Merle had gone to prison for armed robbery and assaulting an officer (Daryl had been at work that morning, doing one of his odd jobs around a garage) and for the first time in his life he could do whatever the hell he wanted. So he salvaged the Bonnie, got clean, and took to courting death on his own terms.

He leaned into the mirror and examined his face. None of the burst blood vessels like his da and Merle. The skin around his right eye was puffy and tender. He didn’t _look_ like an alcoholic, he thought, rubbing a hand over his stubble, just like a mean sonuvabitch. Most of the time he was glad the crash had fucked up his face; at least he wasn’t _pretty_ anymore like Merle used to taunt him.

Rick Grimes’s nose had never been broken. It jutted out of his face, straight as an arrow, and his eyes were perfectly symmetrical. He was willing to bet the cop didn’t have any tattoos, either. No angry demons wrestling on his shoulder, no devil inside his arm. Certainly no amateur scribbles done in India ink with a sewing needle after he’d had too much to drink.

There was a faint scratching at the door of the trailer. He dragged his shirt over his head and pulled his jeans back on. When he yanked the door open, the little junkyard dog Billie was standing there, wagging her tail.

“The hell d’you want?”

The mutt just wagged her tail.

“Fucken hell.” He let her in.

*

The days began to take on a rhythm. He rose at dawn to hunt or take the Bonnie on a spin through the backroads. Then he’d clean up in the little shower he’d rigged in the lean-to behind the garage. By nine he got down to work on the cars, and T-Dog would roll in at ten or eleven to handle the customers and some of the easier repairs. They worked til five or six before calling it quits. Then T went back to Atlanta and he went back to his trailer.

T invited him over a couple times, and after he ran dry of excuses he finally agreed and followed him into the city on his bike. That was how he found himself having dinner with T-Dog and his girlfriend Jacqui once or twice a week. Jacqui called him _sweetie_ and at first it rankled but then he sort of started to like it. There was something so warm and motherly about her that a part of him wanted to break down and confess everything so she could absolve him, and then he could lay his head in her lap and let her rock him to sleep.

He got claustrophobic at night, the walls of the trailer closing in around him. City sounds on one side, whispering trees on the other. He thought about Sophia. Wondered if she was all right, if she’d got rid of her da. Then he thought about Rick Grimes and felt sweaty and feverish. He would’ve just fucked the cop back at the motel and been done with him, had he known the man would haunt his nights so persistently. There was no rhyme or reason to it. He didn’t normally fixate on people, mostly they came and went with hardly a blip on his radar. _That’s how people make friends, by talking._ Talk had never been much use to him. Friends, neither. But as he lay awake those long, hot nights, he realized quitting the carnival had less to do with Joe’s bullshit and more to do with Grimes’s cornflower blue eyes. He could find Grimes easy enough. He had his number, he knew where he worked. Easy, it would be so easy to… But then the adrenaline started racing _pack it up_ he thought _hit the road jack and let this place eat your dust._

But he didn’t.

The Bonnie kept breaking down, for one thing. Nothing major, just little glitches here and there. Old British bikes, they were temperamental. But that suited him just fine because he was temperamental too. Damn good thing he was a mechanic, though, else he’d’ve sold her out of sheer spite.

Then he told himself that he owed it to T-Dog, to stick around for a while. The man was useless for anything beyond the most fundamental repair jobs, and Daryl would be a jackass to leave him high and dry after all the kindness he’d shown.

He figured King County wasn’t all that bad, for a small town. He still got suspicious looks aplenty, but he took pride in earning them for himself, with his unkempt appearance, aggressive manner, and noisy bike. Anti-Dixon rancor seemed to have faded over the past decade, with senior dead and Merle locked up. Sure, a couple cashiers raised their eyebrows when he had to show his driver’s license to buy cigarettes and liquor, but they didn’t start anything. Some folks were downright friendly, even after he glowered at them.

As it turned out, he was building something of a reputation. A good reputation. He’d never had one of those before, and it irritated and amused him in equal measure.

One day a guy from a flashy car dealership in Atlanta showed up and offered him a job. He was so surprised he said no without even thinking about it. Later T-Dog chewed him out, demanding to know why the hell he’d turned down a salaried position with benefits. He shrugged and mumbled something vague about not wanting to be tied down. “If there’s another offer, I’ll consider it,” he conceded eventually.

There was, just four days later, and he turned that down, too.

“Thirty-five thousand dollars? _Dental_? Boy, you outta your _mind_ ,” T-Dog said.

Maybe he was. But people were bringing their cars to the service station and requesting him specifically _. This guy, Daryl, he fixed my cousin’s MDX. Can he take a look at my Forester? It’s ancient, but I hear he can fix anything._ The money that came in was decent money. Good money even. It suited him just fine, doing what he wanted when he wanted. He could turn people away if he didn’t like the look of them, or he could spend days taking apart and rebuilding a single engine. “Like bein my own boss,” he told T.

“ _I’m_ your boss,” T reminded him, before sitting down at the front desk and letting him do exactly whatever the hell he wanted.

So even though he was exhausted and covered in grease, he lay on his back under a 1988 Ford Taurus, tinkering away long after T-Dog had gone home. He saw a pair of feet approach and slid out from under the car to inform the visitor that the bays were all full-up for the night.

He found himself face-to-face with Rick Grimes.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably the closest thing this story has to a cliffhanger. But you won't be hanging long!


	5. like we're friends

Rick’s shift was nearly through when the patrol car blew a flat tire. He could have screamed with frustration. He radioed Morgan, who was deskbound with a sprained ankle.

“Dale’s is closest,” Morgan said when Rick gave him the coordinates. “Little place down Washout Road, might still be open at this hour…”

Fuming, Rick pulled an illegal U-turn and started back the way he came. The cruiser was listing sharply to the side, and the flat tire screeched every time he braked. Stopped at a red light, he banged his head against the steering wheel. Self-pity threatening to overwhelm him.

Yesterday he had turned thirty. His birthday and Shane’s were so close together that they usually celebrated them jointly. Photos from these parties attested to Shane’s restless dating habits; Rick couldn’t think of a single woman who had lasted long enough to become a fixture. Last year they had thrown a barbecue in Rick and Lori’s backyard. Between their neighborhood friends and their buddies from the force, the party grew so large and boisterous it spilled out onto the street. Shane hadn’t brought a date. Which might have seemed odd if Rick had thought about it, but he hadn’t. He certainly never would have guessed Shane was sleeping with his own wife.

There was no party this year, obviously. When Lori called to wish him a happy birthday, she sounded sorry for him. He resented her pity, but then she offered to give him Carl for the day, even though it was technically her week. He couldn’t say no.

So Rick had spent his thirtieth birthday with his son. The day was fine so he took Carl to the backyard and played with him on the grass. A year ago the yard had been filled with laughter and the smell of grilling meat. He could hear Shane’s booming voice _c’mon brother, do a shot with me_ , and someone had taken a picture of them, him and Shane and Lori and infant Carl, that had sat pride of place on the mantel until the affair broke. When it did, the picture disappeared. Lori must have taken it down and secreted it away somewhere. For all the good it did; she would have had to hide almost all their family photos to erase Shane’s presence from the house.

Rick could hardly look at her now. Their emotional farewell had left him hollow. They saw each other regularly but she had become a stranger to him. He regarded her anxious, pretty face and thought dully, _I was married to this woman._ Their life together could have been a figment of his imagination, an episode from someone else’s life. They were polite and formal now. She demanded nothing of him and she granted him ample time with their son. They never argued. It was an exemplary separation. He felt stiff and calcified.

Small things made him angry. A clogged drain. A burnt-out light bulb. A blown tire.

The trip to Dale’s carried him past the empty fairground again. Daryl Dixon wasn’t there, of course. If it wasn’t for the open file on Carol and Sophia Peletier sitting on his desk, Rick might have thought he’d dreamt the whole thing. _I met a man who defied gravity…_

He turned down Washout Road. The station was still lit up, a good sign, but he didn’t see Dale or anyone else around. He got out of the cruiser to investigate, and closer inspection revealed a pair of feet protruding from under an old Ford Taurus.

He never expected them to belong to Daryl Dixon. 

*

“All full-up,” Daryl said, looking dirty and pissed-off. He’d carried that whiff of violence about him the night they met; tonight the menace was ratcheting up and there were no skinned knees or lollipop jokes to defuse it.

“It’s just a flat,” Rick said calmly. Daryl had yet to acknowledge that they knew each other. His eyes were smoking like two chips of dry ice.

“Closed fer the night.”

“Could I talk to Dale?”

“Dale aint here.” Daryl slapped a filthy shop rag against his thigh for emphasis. The setting sun caught flecks of gold in his dark hair.

Rick swallowed. “The carnival left weeks ago,” he said.

“Quit,” came the terse reply. Daryl was wearing a flannel button-down with the sleeves ripped out. Rick ran his eyes over the powerful muscles of his arms. It was unbearably hot all of a sudden. “Maybe in the mornin.”

“What?” he said, absently.

“Maybe I fix yer cop car in the mornin,” Daryl said, even more grudgingly at being forced to repeat himself.

“How am I s’posed to get home tonight?” he wanted to know.

Daryl shrugged. _Not my problem._

“You could’ve called.”

Daryl shrugged again. “Where’s your _wife_?” he spat suddenly, eyes disappearing into mean little slits.

Rick was taken aback by his venom. “She left,” he said. He held up his left hand, ring-less. Some whim had made him slide the wedding band off his finger that very morning. Sitting there in his palm, the ring had looked small and innocuous. He’d wondered how something so unremarkable had the power to bind people together for life. Or not, as the case would have it. The ring had left a stripe of pale skin around his fourth finger, the ghost of a promise.

“Huh.” Daryl chewed his lip, looking severe. Rick held his gaze, waiting, not quite hoping.

Then Daryl jerked his head and set off around the side of the garage.

Rick hesitated.

“Hey Kojak, ya comin?”

The nickname made his skin prickle defensively. A sardonic smile tugged at Daryl’s lips as he stood there, waiting. Rick could read a challenge as well as any man.

He followed 

* 

The mood changed once they were inside Daryl’s trailer.

A small dog sat in the corner, ears pricked forward, watching them intently. Daryl seemed almost jittery, drawing the curtains and sweeping crumbs off the table. “Gonna wash up,” he said abruptly, and disappeared into the bathroom. The lock clicked shut and Rick heard the sound of running water.

He sat on the bed, neatly made and covered with a faded patchwork quilt. It reminded him of the one his mother-in-law had made for Carl. A minute later the dog trotted over, and he held out his hand for her to sniff. She snuffled wetly into his palm and lay down at his feet.

Rick hadn’t had a hookup since college, not since that isolated semester when he and Lori had broken up. Symptomatically horny yet convinced he could never love another girl, not after Lori, Rick had conducted some furtive experiments with a junior on the soccer team. It had been an edifying few months, but after he and Lori reconciled he had been all too happy to exchange those intriguing fumbles for her soft, familiar body and a new diamond ring for her finger.

He was less familiar with the rules of engagement, or rather disengagement, for bedding a stranger.

Daryl let himself out of the bathroom so quietly Rick didn’t realize he was there until he stood in front of him. He had changed his shirt for a nearly identical variation of the previous, but cleaner, and he’d scrubbed most of the grease off his face and arms. With his damp hair pushed back, Rick was struck anew by the strange contradiction of his features, the mix of elegant and rough, delicate and coarse.

He wondered what Daryl was thinking, as he looked _him_ over, just as intently. The shifting cat eyes and the thin-pressed lips gave nothing away.

“Wanna beer?” Daryl said, snapping him out of his reverie.

“Thanks,” Rick said.

He took a long gulp of something dark and hoppy. Daryl had opened a beer for himself, too, but he just picked at the label, eyes on the floor. Rick felt the need to talk bubbling up in his throat. Thoughts of Nantucket, the whaling industry, Herman Melville and Moby Dick—

But then he remembered how Daryl had said _don’t you ever quit talkin?_ So he stood up and set his half-empty bottle on the table. Something in Daryl’s eyes flickered. He switched off the light, leaving them in the orange glow of the setting sun filtered through the curtains. It softened the harsh contours of his face, and Rick sucked in a ragged breath. They stared at each other.

He had a moment of panic, seconds after he’d grabbed for Daryl’s shoulders and shoved their mouths together. Daryl was utterly still under his clutching fingers and pressing lips. _Wrong,_ his nerves screeched, the wrongness was excruciating until Daryl suddenly sucked Rick’s bottom lip between his teeth and bit down, _hard._

The flare of pain made his eyes water. His mouth fell open and Daryl’s tongue brushed over his abused lip and darted inside. Daryl tasted like the last cigarette he’d smoked, and underneath was something scorching and bitter like pine sap. He reached out and held Rick’s face in the cup of his palm. There was nothing unnatural about it, reflected the tiny portion of his brain that remained aloof. It was no different from the other times he’d kissed somebody for the first time. There was the same tentative heat, the same curiosity. He waited to be charged with the electrifying embarrassment he’d felt after kissing the soccer player, but it never came.

Daryl drew back and leaned against the table. Staring at him, assessing his reaction. Rick brought a hand to his throbbing mouth. He burned and burned, losing control and stumbling as he lurched for Daryl again. Daryl’s teeth flashed; he was chuckling at Rick’s clumsiness even as he seized him by the hips and dragged him forward. Lips, teeth and tongues mashed together. Rick buried his hands in Daryl’s damp hair. Daryl’s fingers dug into his hips, deftly untucking his uniform shirt and sliding up his sweaty back. The feel of Daryl’s calloused hands against his skin drove him wild. He retaliated by licking and biting his way along Daryl’s jaw. Daryl threw his head back and groaned when Rick sucked on his collarbone; the sound traveled through Rick’s whole body and made him vibrate like a plucked string. It was familiar, entirely familiar, much more so than if he were touching a woman he’d never touched before. And it made him shake, because their bodies were the same. When he touched Daryl he knew what Daryl was feeling, just as Daryl knew when touching Rick, so it seemed both normal and unbearable, a single touch amplified between two bodies, resonating back and forth.

Daryl was clasping them together so tightly that Rick could feel the straining outline of his erection through his jeans. The sensation made him pause, but then he was flying through the air, landing with a thump on his back in the middle of the bed. The mattress dipped and then Daryl was between his legs, crawling up his body. When their faces were level he stopped, forearms framing Rick’s head. His eyes were very bright.

“You good?” The question rumbled through his chest and sank into Rick’s skin. He realized he was panting, mouth hanging open like a dog’s, hands clutching the quilt as he bucked against the body above him. Chasing the feel of Daryl’s hardness. And Daryl obliged him, rocking his hips down until Rick moaned and turned to jelly.

“Asked if you was good,” Daryl murmured, levering himself up on his elbows. His brows had knitted and he was eyeing Rick beadily.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Rick said, back arching as his pelvis sought Daryl’s again. Like Daryl had a fucking magnet on his dick, drawing his own irresistibly upwards.

Daryl looked between their bodies and smirked, but he kept his distance. “Kinda need a yes or no here, Kojak,” he said.

Rick blew out his breath impatiently. “ _Yes_ ,” he said. “It’s not like I’ve never done this before…” He had been nineteen and the soccer player had been twenty. There had been more curiosity than desire between them; a silent clause underwrote their furtive copulations, an unspoken agreement that they would never speak of this again after they settled down with the women they both believed they were destined to be with til death did them part.

Rick was still curious, he wanted to know what Daryl looked like with his clothes off, how it would feel when they were skin on skin, whether or not Daryl kept his eyes open when he came. But anticipation and desire outweighed objective curiosity, and he was throbbing like an overgrown caterpillar about to burst free of its chrysalis. Looking up at Daryl, he tried to convey some of this with his eyes, a frantic but sincere transmission of how badly he wanted him.

The corners of Daryl’s eyes crinkled up in understanding, and suddenly a switch flipped. An electrical current jolted them into action and they kissed again, wet and sloppy. Daryl let Rick tumble them over and breathed hard through his nose as Rick attacked the sensitive wings of his collarbone again. When it became too much Daryl hooked a leg around his waist and flipped them, and their groping became a wrestling match. Rick laughed breathlessly as he was dumped onto his back again and again. Daryl was stronger than he was and absolutely ruthless. He maneuvered his body this way and that, spreading him out however he wanted. Rick had never been _handled_ before, and it turned him on something fierce.

He reached up to undo the buttons of Daryl’s shirt, holding his breath as he painstakingly slipped each button through its hole. He gripped the sides in preparation to rip it off Daryl’s shoulders, but firm hands fastened around his wrists.

“Leave it,” Daryl said gruffly, grip tightening painfully and Rick nodded, too clouded with lust to ask questions. Daryl released his wrists and he drew the shirt open but not off, and there was Daryl’s hard chest, the small peaks of his nipples, the hollows of his ribs, the taut planes of his stomach. Rick’s eyes followed the faint dusting of hair that darkened as it vanished under his belt. Then it was his turn, Daryl doing a more efficient job of getting him naked because he didn’t give a shit for the integrity of Rick’s uniform. Buttons popped, threads tore, and his gun belt flew across the room with an almighty clatter that should have made the automatic pistol discharge but they were lucky and it didn’t.

Daryl’s face was buried against his stomach, which he nipped at none too gently, flicking his tongue into his navel as he worked Rick’s pants and boxers down his thighs. Daryl’s breath was hot against his skin and Rick bit down on his own shoulder when Daryl touched him, a calloused thumb circling the sensitive head of his cock, then dragging downwards. It jolted him into speech. “Jesus _fuck_ ,” he gasped, knotting his fingers in Daryl’s long hair. “Ah, Christ, that fucking—fuck…”

“Wondered when you was gonna start talkin again,” Daryl growled into his stomach with another of those oddly endearing little chuckles. “Fucken chatterbox.” He dragged himself up and plastered his lips to Rick’s, smothering his curses before they could leave his mouth. Daryl’s hands cradled his face almost protectively, and Rick wondered if near-anonymous sex always felt this intimate. His cock was rubbing against Daryl’s stomach, all smooth skin and sticky dampness because, Christ, he was already dripping. Gentle as it was, the friction was nudging him perilously close to the edge, so he pulled out of the kiss and started trying to count the number of parking tickets he’d given out that week.

“What’re you countin?” Daryl’s breath tickled his ear. “Sheep?”

“Tickets,” Rick grunted, rocking his hips.

“Cop motherfucker,” Daryl told him. “Aint havin that.” He reared back and slid out of his jeans without ceremony. He wasn’t wearing underwear. His hand closed loosely around his dick, long and hard with a pearly drop at the tip, and he gave it a couple perfunctory strokes as he looked down at Rick. A slight question in his eyes. Rick nodded, comprehending at last what Daryl had meant when he asked if he was good, if he was good with _this._ And he was. He wanted to explore every possible position and iteration and configuration with this man and he wished for hours (days, weeks, months) to do just that, but for now he wanted Daryl inside of him and said as much, spreading his legs for emphasis.

It wasn’t for nothing that Daryl reminded him of a cat; the man sprang like a jungle predator, landing on top of him and knocking the air from his lungs. Rick laughed breathlessly, and what he’d come to think of as Daryl’s customary smirk stretched and broadened into a real smile. It banished the wariness from his eyes and made him look playful and boyish.

Daryl was slotted tightly between his thighs and their skin was touching all over, sweat already starting to gather between them. The air in the trailer grew humid and close, smelling of arousal and sex. As they kissed, mouths growing dry and desperate, Rick heard Daryl fumbling around in the bedside table. The sound of a bottle popping open was _real_ , and it made him shiver. But Daryl was smooth; he warmed whatever it was in the palm of his hand before he pulled Rick’s leg over his shoulder and slowly pushed one finger inside.

Rick was gritting his teeth so hard his jaw began to ache. _Easy_ he heard Daryl’s voice but it was in his head not his ears, and under the ministrations of a second finger and then a third he could feel himself opening like a flower. Daryl’s face was creased with concentration and his half-lidded eyes were watching him closely.

“Do it,” he heard himself urging in an unfamiliar voice, low and raspy. “Go on, put it in me.”

Daryl reared back onto his knees and he was ripping a foil packet open with his teeth. Rolling it onto his dick one-handed, fingers of his other hand still buried deep inside Rick.

Then there was a loud crack of sound that made them both jump. Peering over Daryl’s broad shoulder, it took Rick several seconds to locate the interruption and realize the dog was barking.

Daryl swore, withdrawing his fingers abruptly. “Gonna throw the damn bitch dog out,” he growled, rolling away and leaving Rick open and wanting. He seized the dog around the middle and yanked the door open, ejecting her efficiently but not ungently from the trailer before slamming it shut again. Splayed and desperate as he was, Rick took a moment to admire the tight globes of his ass, his powerfully muscled thighs. Then Daryl turned and stalked towards him again, eyes glittering and intent with purpose. His shirt gaped open on his chest, already littered with bite-marks, and his cock stood out proudly from his body.

This time Rick was ready when he pounced, opening arms and legs to receive him. _No more playing_ he nodded Daryl on, and Daryl guided the thick head of his cock between his legs and began to push inside. Rick’s muscles stung and stretched to accommodate him, so much hotter and fuller than his fingers. He thought there was something tender about the way Daryl was holding him, but perhaps he was mistaken; it had been so long since anyone had held him at all.

Daryl inched deeper until he was fully sheathed; then his hips froze, even as his hands roamed restlessly over Rick’s body, smoothing the hair on his chest and tweaking at his nipples. Rick didn’t realize he was waiting for permission until his whole body started quivering with the effort of holding back. So he locked his ankles around Daryl’s waist and kissed him. “Please.”

Daryl’s rhythm was jagged at first, like he hadn’t yet mastered the terrain of Rick’s body. Then his thrusts grew smoother, bolder, deeper, and Rick yelled when the angle changed and Daryl hit his prostate. Daryl’s eyes flashed sly triumph; he gave himself over to hammering the spot mercilessly with every instroke. He was everywhere at once, stroking, cupping, scratching, pulling; he must have sprouted multiple arms like the Hindu god Vishnu, maybe he _was_ the Hindu god Vishnu, because how else could his hands be in Rick’s hair and at his hips and wrapped around his dick, all the while anchoring them to the bed as he kept up that punishing pace, urging Rick to meet him thrust for thrust for—

Rick came all over himself, spurting through Daryl’s fingers and getting sticky release everywhere as he writhed through his orgasm. He would have been embarrassed at the swiftness of it, but his body felt slack and warm as Daryl continued to move inside him.

Daryl finished silently, half a minute later, with only a faint hitch of breath. But he shook with the force of it. Then he rested his head against Rick’s shoulder and the tense lines of his body slackened in repose.

They exchanged lazy, open-mouthed kisses as they came down. The back of Daryl’s shirt was soaked through, and they were both slippery as seals. Daryl was still on top of him, in him. His tongue lapped the sweat pooled in the hollow of Rick’s throat.

Minutes passed and their racing pulses slowed. Daryl pulled out carefully, squatting back on his heels to inspect the damage. It made Rick squirm a little, that the other man was so obviously mesmerized by his gaping asshole, but then Daryl was shaking a pillow loose and using the empty case to clean him. He was gentle, meticulous, sopping up the mix of cum and slick from his belly and inner thighs. He was brusque and perfunctory in his own wipe-down, tossing the pillowcase aside with the condom when he was through. Then he reached for his jeans and Rick thought they were done, that he’d be ejected from the trailer as unceremoniously as the mutt. But Daryl only extricated a pack of smokes from the pocket and flopped down beside him again.

He watched Daryl light up, the fluid, one-handed gesture of a lifelong smoker. It entranced him and he opened his mouth, but Daryl got there first. “Don’t even think about it,” he warned, brandishing the lighter in Rick’s direction.

“What?” Rick said, wounded.

“Askin me my life story,” Daryl said. “Yeah, I know, ’s that time a the night, ‘tell me bout yerself, I wanna know all about ya.’ That sorta shit.”

Rick winced.

“Right, aint I?” Daryl’s mouth twisted. “Or maybe yer jus’ waitin fer the opportunity ta tell me yours?” He took a long drag on the cigarette, exhaling smoke through his nose.

Rick tried not to be hurt by his belligerence. “And that’s exactly how people burn to death in their beds,” he returned acidly.

Daryl froze, the cigarette halfway to his mouth. All the color fled his face. He looked as if he had just seen a ghost.

“Daryl?” He hadn’t meant anything by it, he couldn’t fathom why his offhand jab had put such a terrible, haunted look on the other man’s face—

Daryl shook himself like a dog, making his sweaty hair spike up every which way. “Jus’ forget it, Kojak,” he said at last, and smiled crookedly. “Aint nuthin.”

There was no way it was _nothing_ , but the chill in the air was evaporating and Rick’s desire to stay in Daryl’s bed outweighed his compulsion to pry.

Daryl must have sensed his surrender because he stretched out again, casually sliding one leg between Rick’s. Lori always put her nightclothes on after they had sex, compelling him to do the same, but Daryl seemed at ease with their nakedness. He finished his cigarette slowly, and by the time he stubbed it out they were in complete darkness. Rick felt his eyelids fluttering.

“I have a son,” he said. Pressed against Daryl, he fell into a dreamless sleep.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well that escalated quickly, you say. 
> 
> Would that it were so simple. 
> 
> Your thoughts welcome and encouraged!


	6. that old-fashioned morphine

He got up with the sun and dressed quietly. Billie was waiting for him outside the trailer, a sullen expression on her face, and he fed her some jerky in silent apology.

The patrol car sat in the driveway, slumped forward on its flat tire. He found a match in the garage and swapped it out. When he was through he lit up his first cigarette of the morning. It tasted better than coffee.

He heard Rick come out of the trailer, listened to his boots crunch on the gravel as he approached.

“Thank you for doing this,” Rick said.

“Welcome,” he grunted, staring at the ground. He felt mellow, not in the mood to pick a fight, which was his standard OP for mornings-after. But he wasn’t ready to meet Rick’s eyes, either. He squatted down beside the car, under the pretense of double-checking his work. “How old’s your kid?”

“Eighteen months. Carl. He’s…” Rick couldn’t seem to find the right superlative. He trailed off and Daryl heard the smile in his voice, even though he was still glaring resolutely at the tire.

“See him much?”

“Yes, thank god. I’ll see him this morning actually. My w—Lori’s coming by with the papers before my shift.”

Right, his w—. His Lori. Daryl tasted something sour at the back of his throat but swallowed it down. “Divorce papers, huh?”

“That’s right.”

He chanced a glance upward through his bangs. Rick was looking at him hopefully. His mouth still looked swollen from the pummeling it had taken the night before. But Daryl always played his cards close to the chest, so he looked away. “What ever happened ta that kid?” he asked instead. “Sophia?”

Rick straightened, shifting gears and selves more easily than Daryl ever could. The roles _he_ played, each was grittier and uglier than the last and he got them stuck in the gears. But Rick became a cop again with the smooth glide of an automatic. “Mrs. Peletier didn’t want to press charges against her husband,” he said. “It looked like we’d have to release him, but then Sophia… Man, she was incredible. She gave a statement, even got her mom talking. Our social worker found them a place in a shelter in Atlanta until the hearing’s over. We’ll get that bastard put away for a good long time.”

Daryl nodded, tracing the tire pattern with his fingertip. Rick’s words took a load off. He’d wanted that kid to have a new lease on life, so she wouldn’t grow up meek and cowed like her mom, or mean and twitchy like him.

“She’s always asking about you,” Rick added. “You’re a superhero to her.”

“Bullshit,” he scoffed, feeling his neck heat up.

“Try telling her that,” Rick said. “Daryl, what you did for that girl—”

“Put a fucken lid on it, man.” Flustered, he got to his feet and scrubbed his hands on his jeans. “Don’t wanna talk about it no more.”

“Sure.” Rick slipped out of cop mode with a little shrug and Daryl could look at him again. He looked and saw how Rick’s wavy hair was rumpled, how he’d misbuttoned his uniform shirt. So he slithered forward and fixed it for him, fingers lingering on bare skin. He was still mellow, nothing in him telling him to run, and he felt alright in his skin. All of a piece, not like he was tearing apart in a thousand different directions.

Rick’s hands curled around his biceps and he was tugged into a kiss. Normally he wouldn’t have stood for it. But he was mellow. Rick fit their mouths together easily this time. Confident now. So Daryl rested his hand loosely on Rick’s hip and let him lead.

Rick was a good kisser. He would’ve had years of practice, waking up everyday with his w—, his Lori. But Daryl didn’t feel like he was on the receiving end of a kiss designed for someone else. The kind of kiss Rick was giving him, it was for someone who was exactly the same height, someone whose chin was as coarse as his own, someone who liked it rough and a little bit dangerous.

He pulled away. “Boss is off at six,” he said. The words were out before he could take them back. They surprised him. Seconds ago he’d been kissing Rick goodbye. “Come round after. If ya want.” He hated himself for that last bit, the insecure little _if ya want_. He wasn’t in the habit of keeping people in his life.

“I’ll bring dinner,” Rick said. His smile lit up his whole face and he fucking _glowed_ in the dawn light.

Daryl bit the inside of his cheek so he wouldn’t smile back. 

* 

“Yo! Where your head at, boy?”

Daryl had been staring off into space, twirling a ratchet between his fingers. “Huh?” he said, intelligently.

“You been orbiting outer space all afternoon,” T-Dog accused. “I called your name three times.”

“Sorry, man.” He set down the ratchet and rolled his shoulders. “What’s up?”

T-Dog rolled his eyes. “Need you to go to the store and pick up a drill press. Think you can manage that?”

“What kind?” Stretching his arms over his head, he felt the pull in his abs and obliques, sore from the workout he’d given them the previous night.

“V-press,” T said, holding up the old one, which had cracked right down the middle. “Wanna take the truck?”

“Nah, I got my bike workin again.” He was glad to leave the shop. His brain was spinning like a hamster on a wheel, he’d been thinking about sucking Rick off. Not on his knees, of course. It was more intimate than sex, not being reciprocal and all. But he liked the idea of the other man lying prostrate beneath him as he put his mouth on him.

He drove through the outskirts of town and pulled up in front of the hardware store. He’d taken to dropping in once or twice a week for parts or tools, so he was on good terms with Morales, the manager.

“¿Qué tal, Daryl?” Morales called as he walked in.

“Nada. You?”

“The usual,” Morales said, leaning against the counter. “Slow day.”

“Yeah.” The first time he’d gone in there, he’d overheard Morales joking with an employee. “Un hombre va al circo en busca de empleo,” Morales said. “El director le pregunta: ‘¿Y usted qué sabe hacer?’ El hombre dice, ‘yo… imito a los pájaros.’ El director responde, ‘bueno… creo que no nos interesa, gracias.’… Y el hombre se fue volando.” Waiting to check out, Daryl had snorted under his breath, and Morales rounded on him. “You speak Spanish?” the man had demanded, making Daryl wonder if they’d been gossiping about him while he browsed the aisles. “Are you part—” “Do I look like a spic ta you?” he’d said weakly, trying to summon his best Merle and failing miserably, because he’d never had the conviction to put behind his borrowed venom. So what should have been a fistfight ended in Morales laughing at him for being a pathetic excuse for a redneck, and then Morales had come outside to look at his bike and they’d smoked some cigarettes and found they got along pretty well.

He found the right drill press and brought it to the counter. Ringing him up, Morales squinted at him critically.

“¿Qué pasó, hombre? You look different, man.”

“Aint no different,” he said, scowling.

“Thought you were in a good mood for a second there. Had me scared, to be honest, seeing you with a smile on your face.”

“Fuck off, pendejo.” He folded the receipt carefully and put it in his pocket. “’M always in a good mood.”

“Eres un rayito de sol,” Morales confirmed cheerfully. “Un modelo de luz, un—”

“¿Por qué no te callas, huh?”

He had a cigarette in the parking lot before he got back on his bike. Things were slow at the garage too, he could afford to dawdle. His nerves hummed pleasantly. Rick would be back in a couple hours and they’d get off again; the first time had been good enough to warrant a second. _Then_ they’d be through. It crossed his mind that Rick would be coming to him tonight as a free man. He didn’t give a damn about Rick’s w—, of course, but all the same he was glad those papers would be signed and done with. Baggage was something he could do without.

He took the long way back, zigzagging around the town perimeter. The wind whipped through his hair and for once the Bonnie wasn’t acting up, she was smooth and steady beneath him. Up ahead he saw a silver Subaru parked on the roadside, a woman standing beside it. There was a heavy cloud of smoke rising from the bonnet. He slowed, coming to a stop. “Gotta problem, lady?”

“Oh!” The woman, slender and pretty with long brown hair, gave him the anxious, mistrustful look he was so accustomed to. “No, thank you, everything’s fine.”

“Yer hood’s smokin.”

“It is, I’m just calling Triple A…” She waved her cellphone through the air. “I usually get service around here, I don’t know what’s…”

“Want me ta take a look?” he said, as patiently as he could. Do-gooding gave him a sour stomach, especially when the intended beneficiary was a suburban housewife who looked at him like he was the dogshit she’d just scraped off her shoe.

On the other hand, T-Dog had told him he had a face like an ax-murderer, and that was on good days. T didn’t mean any harm by it; that was just how his face _was._ Mean and dangerous, even when he wasn’t in a temper. _Keep scowling, and one day your face is gonna freeze like that_ his momma told him when he was a kid. Little did she know how right she’d be, she burnt herself up soon after; even so, he’d had a lot of outside help to mold his face the way it was.

Couldn’t blame the lady for thinking he was out for rape and murder, then maybe grand theft auto to round it off.

“’M a mechanic,” he explained. “Work at Dale’s service station, ya know?”

“Really?” Her brow unfurrowed and she gave him a warm smile, making it hard for him to hate her. “I’d appreciate your help.”

She kept talking as he rolled ahead to park the bike. “I was just going along as usual, and suddenly there was all this steam coming out. I looked down, and the needle on the temperature gauge was through the roof. The car’s never overheated before, it’s always been pretty reliable…”

“Got any coolant?” he asked, wrapping his shop rag around his hand and popping the hood. Another cloud of smoke billowed out.

“No,” she said ruefully. “My, um, ex-husband always told me I should keep that stuff in the trunk, but I never got around to it, I wouldn’t know what to do with it anyway. Stupid of me, you’d think I’d have figured out how to use coolant, or change a tire, or—”

“Take it easy, Olive Oyl,” he said, surprised by her vehemence. “Might not be the coolant.”

A loud squall came from the backseat of the car.

She sighed. “And here I was, hoping he’d sleep through the excitement.” She climbed in the back and emerged a moment later with a crying baby on her hip.

“Huh,” Daryl said, still waiting for the smoke to dissipate. He didn’t know much about babies, hadn’t seen a lot of them up close, so he couldn’t guess how old this one was. They all looked small to him. He turned his attention back to the engine. There was still plenty of coolant left, which meant there was probably a leak or a faulty hose somewhere. Unless…

“’S the radiator fan,” he called. “All corroded. Dontcha ever get this thing serviced?”

“My husband kept track of all that,” she said. “Don’t tell me, I know how dumb I must sound right now.”

He shrugged, working his rag through the grates. “Dunno, bet there’s plenty a shit he aint got a clue how ta do now, either.” He pulled out his knife and started scraping the corrosion off the fan blades.

“You’re very kind,” she said, moving closer with her kid on her hip to watch him work. He just snorted and shook his head. _Kind_? That was something he’d never been called before. “D’you think you’ll be able to fix it? The fan?”

“Almost finished.” He pried a last bit of rust off and stuck his knife back in his belt. “Yeah, yer good.”

“You fixed it?”

“Well, you oughta get a tune-up ’fore long, but yeah, it’ll get ya where ya need ta go.” He closed the bonnet and went round to try the engine. It started smoothly, and there was no steam.

“That was incredible of you.” She offered him another smile that even _he_ could tell was genuine, because it made her pretty brown eyes sparkle. Her kid was looking at him too, a wide blue-eyed stare that reminded him of something he couldn’t quite place. “Would you be offended if I tried to pay you for your help?”

“Yep,” he said shortly, wiping his hands clean on his jeans. It unnerved him a little, the way her kid was looking at him.

“Well, thank you. I’ll definitely bring the car back to you for servicing. Dale’s, you said, right? What’s your name?”

“Jus’ ask fer Daryl,” he mumbled, starting to feel flustered. He backed away towards his bike and started the ignition.

“Thank you again, Daryl,” she said. “Okay, Carl sweetie, let’s get you home.”

_Carl._ He released the clutch too quickly and the motorcycle jumped. “Hey, lady!” he hollered over the roar of the engine. “What’s yer name?”

“I’m Lori!” she called back. “It was nice meeting you.”

He rolled on too much throttle and peeled away with an obnoxious _vroom vroom_ that probably started her kid screaming again. Her and Rick’s kid, that was. Carl. _Motherfucker._ He’d had a picture of Rick’s wife in his head, a blonde bitch with big tits and too much makeup. Not a nice-mannered Olive Oyl who stared him in the eye and called him _kind._ And that damn baby, looking so much like Rick. Of course those big blue eyes made him feel funny; he’d stared into an identical pair last night while fucking their owner six ways to Sunday. Son of a bitch, this was exactly the kind of baggage he wanted no piece of. No feelings, no family, just good old-fashioned no-strings sex that wouldn’t—

The deer came out of nowhere. He swerved violently, the wheels skidded on loose gravel, and he had just enough time to think _sonnuva fuck_ before everything went black.

* 

The first man happened when he was eighteen, just a couple months after he left home. It shattered him.

Merle was elsewhere, as Merle usually was. Gone to buy drugs, leaving his baby brother drunk enough and lonesome enough to follow a stranger with a kind smile out to the alley behind the bar.

It was terrible, awful, dreadful. There were no words to describe it and Daryl immediately understood why it was a sin and why Merle and his da had warned him about it, all his life.

Because it was wonderful and he fucking loved it.

After it was over it hurt to look at the man, it hurt to look at him and feel him and know where all that pleasure came from. So he’d hitched up his pants and run like that man was the devil himself.

It wasn’t until the next time, and the time after that, that he understood how lucky he’d been. A blowjob, plenty of lube, a rubber, just a couple scrapes on his palms where he’d braced himself against the wall.

The next men were worse, but nothing shattered him like the first one.

The want had been bad enough, sublimated during adolescence through forced excursions to Merle’s whorehouse and the kind of porn that made him want to scrub his eyeballs with lye. The want had been bad, but there was still hope underneath that kept him on the straight and narrow, emphasis on the straight. Hope that maybe giving in to his fucked-up desires would be worse than the ache of that unrelenting need that flared up in him, when he saw somebody across a crowded barroom or heard a voice that made him tingle.

But after that first man, he learned the truth, and it damned him: having tried it once he would always want it, always want to feel what he had felt then, in that dirty back alley with his hands against the wall and his pants around his ankles. There would never be anything so wonderful and terrible as that feeling. Now he would always know, now he would always want, and it would draw him back there or to places like it, shadowed and hidden and shameful. He didn’t know how he could ever act the part of Merle Dixon’s brother again, now that he’d unleashed that part of himself, dangerous and unpredictable.

When him and Merle got strapped for cash, he had an excuse. He got on his knees a few times for money, but he only did that for a month or two. Because he didn’t know which would be worse, Merle finding out and beating the crap out of him for being a queer, or Merle finding out and making him keep at it, so they’d always have drug money. Daryl didn’t want to learn the answer, so he stopped. Stopped doing it for money, tried to stop doing it altogether.

But he slipped up, sometimes. He took from men and the occasional woman, and they took from him. Every so often, wrestling blindly in the dark with one faceless man or another, he wished he knew how to give, too, without destroying himself. But he didn’t, so he didn’t. And they didn’t give him anything either. An exchange of nothing for nothing.

With Rick it had been different. In the moment there was so much meaning, so much hunger in their mouths and skin. It terrified him, the curious, unfolding, confessional quality of sex that was more than fucking. It had happened without warning. He’d suddenly found himself bare to Rick, overflowing with candor and desire. Rick hadn’t demanded it of him, or even sought it consciously. It happened naturally. Rick begged things of him, with his words and his body and his eyes. _Touch me. Put it in me. Please._ Rick followed his lead. They were reversed from their day-selves in their nakedness. He had gained temporary assurance in some switch of roles he didn’t altogether understand, but he suspected it was due to the manufactured confidence he managed to give off when he felt most cornered. He had Rick believing he was invulnerable, even as he protected himself with every trick he knew.

_That’s how people burn to death…_

*

He ached all over. “Fuck,” he groaned, pushing up on one elbow and blinking away the dark spots blotting out his vision. He was lying in a ditch by the side of the road with a mouth full of grass and leaves. Coughing, he spat and spat until only the taste of dirt remained. Then he took inventory, one limb at a time. Everything responded and he could breathe all right, so no broken bones. He raised a smarting hand to his face and came away with blood; he’d gotten scratched up good. It took him a few moments to remember what had happened, then the deer came back to him and he flailed around in panic, looking for his bike.

He saw the tangled handlebars a few feet away and swore long and loud.

He hauled himself back up to the road. There was no body, no blood, which meant the damn deer had got away just fine.

He could hardly bring himself to look at the motorcycle. Mangled handlebars, dented tank, busted wheel sockets… Nothing he couldn’t fix, but fuck it would take days, weeks, and now he was stranded out here, no ride, no phone.

His whole body screamed in protest as he clambered back down to the ditch and started dragging the bike deeper into the woods. No way she was getting stolen or picked up for scrap metal; he dragged her under a bush and covered the exposed parts with branches.

Now he just had to walk the couple miles back to the garage, get the truck, go back for the Bonnie… He could feel the fury bubbling up inside of him, and he let it fuel his progress as he limped down the road.

He was a jackass to T-Dog when he finally made it back, brushing aside the other man’s concern and refusing any help to recover the bike. It was after five o’clock when he pulled in again with the bike in the truck bed, and his little adventure had put him hours behind his daily workload. He looked a fright, covered in dirt and bleeding freely from his face and arms, but he refused to clean up on T’s watch. To his credit, T-Dog didn’t push it, and left him alone earlier than usual. Deep down he knew he was lucky not to have been fired, and luckier still to have T-Dog as a friend, but he was too pissed off to care.

He’d forgotten about Rick.

Forgotten, until the familiar patrol car pulled up a little after six and Rick got out, carrying a bag of takeaway food. “I brought Chinese!” he called, and Daryl felt a surge of raw aggression, a sudden desire to punch him in the face, just for standing there and smiling and bringing fucking _Chinese._

Rick cottoned on fast, that something was wrong. Maybe it was the mud and blood that clued him in. “You crash?’ he asked perceptively.

“No shit, Kojak,” he snapped, throwing away a screwdriver and not looking to see where it landed. “Top-grade detective work there. Wanna a lollipop?”

“Are you alright?”

He didn’t bother to reply. People like him got hurt all the time, bruised and scraped and bloodied. As long as he could still hold a cigarette and hobble from A to B, yeah, he was fucking fine.

He ignored Rick while he finished up in the yard. The takeaway food was probably getting cold. He tracked down the missing screwdriver and carefully returned all his tools to their proper places. Anger was still simmering in his chest but he couldn’t think of anything else to do, so he went back to the trailer. Rick followed.

It was all Rick’s fault, in a way. If he hadn’t stopped to help Rick’s stupid w— with their stupid kid, he would’ve been long gone before the deer decided to cross the road. If that logic was shaky, well, he’d run out of shits to give.

He pulled a twelve-pack of cheap beer out of the fridge and slammed it on the table, slouching into the booth. Looking a little wary, Rick slid in across from him and started unpacking the bag. “There’s Mongolian beef, sweet-and-sour chicken, and some dumplings,” he said. “I don’t know if you have a microwave somewhere…”

“Nope.”

“Well, it’ll still be good like this. Here.” Rick passed him a paper plate. He ignored it, pulling out his keys and stabbing a hole in his beer can. He shotgunned it and crumpled the empty can in his fist.

“You sure you didn’t spend time in a fraternity?” Rick teased gently, dumping food on his plate for him. But he wasn’t in the mood to be teased. “Didn’t finish high school,” he said tersely, and popped open a second can. Too much hard drinking with Merle; it’d be a while til he felt anything. Sullenly, he watched Rick use chopsticks to convey a piece of chicken neatly to his mouth. He reached into the beef with his grubby fingers and ate it messily.

“Want me to teach you?” Rick offered.

“Nope.” He gave the chicken the same treatment, licking sauce off his fingers. He looked up and saw Rick watching him intently, eyes slightly hooded. Interesting. He stuck two fingers back in his mouth and sucked vigorously. Rick moistened his lips and went slightly cross-eyed. Daryl felt his temper slip with the urge to laugh; he hitched it back into place and took his fingers out of his mouth.

The sound of him noisily popping his third can brought Rick back to himself. The other man shivered, blushed rosily around the ears, and went back to chopsticking his food. They ate in silence. He downed can after can. The food was spicy; he didn’t have to think about it. But the beer wasn’t cooling him down any. He grew hotter and hotter. It irked him, how hard Rick was trying not to provoke him. They barely knew each other and already Rick had learnt when to keep his trap shut and his head down. Rick was trying to defuse him with patience and food and quiet company, but he didn’t want to be defused, he wanted to go off. And if the explosion sent the other man packing, well, all the better. It wasn’t his style to keep people around. So he hunkered into himself, drunk at last, and waited for Rick to make a mistake.

It came after the food cartons were nearly empty and he was puffing on his second cigarette, glaring moodily at the table. “You should stop by my house sometime,” Rick offered, and Daryl jumped on it.

“This aint good enough for ya?” he snapped, stubbing his cigarette out and leaning forward combatively.

“Of course it is,” Rick said evenly. “But this is the second time you’ve—hosted—and it’s only fair for me to do the same.”

“Sure ya wanna let the neighbors see me pullin up in front a yer white picket fence?”

“The neighbors can think what they want,” Rick said, unruffled. “That isn’t my concern.” Whenever Rick climbed on a soapbox, Daryl had noticed, his diction grew crisper and his accent fainter. The opposite was true of him. The more he ranted, his backwoods drawl came on thicker and rougher til he was stumbling over his words like a halfwit.

“What about yer wife—sorry, _ex_ -wife?” he sneered. “This gets back ta her, ya think she’s gonna let ya share custody? No way, Kojak, she gonna—”

“Let’s not bring Lori into this,” Rick said, a note of steel creeping into his voice.

“Course not,” he said bitterly. “She’s too nice for this dump, jus’ like you—”

“Let me speak for myself.” Rick sounded angry at last. He felt a burning rush of victory.

“Whatcha really doin here, huh?” he taunted. “This some kinda experiment for ya, early midlife crisis? Backwoods faggot phase? Well, sorry ta break it to ya, Kojak, but I aint no queer, I aint _nuthin_ , an’ there aint nuthin here for you, neither. Came for a quick fuck? Offer just expired, cowboy, so there aint much point you stickin round.”

“I like spending time with you,” Rick said, his brows snapping together. “And when you’re not drunk, you seem to enjoy spending time with me, too.”

“I’m an alcoholic, you stupid fuck!” he hollered, spittle flying. He staggered to his feet, fists bunching. His head swam and the air was too thick; he felt like he was suffocating.

“Gotta take a piss,” he announced, and stumbled outside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One step forward, two steps back. 
> 
> Thank you for sharing your thoughts with me - I've so enjoyed hearing from you.


	7. dead finks don't talk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry I haven't finished replying to your comments on the previous chapter - chaotic weekend, but I'll get caught up soon. Thank you all so much for writing to me.

Daryl came back maybe twenty minutes later. He had a leaf in his hair and his belt was undone. His pants hung dangerously low on those narrow hips, hinting at the shadow of his pubic hair. His eyes were still glassy, but his step was surer. “Still here, huh?” he said ruefully.

“Yeah,” Rick said.

“Let’s walk.” Daryl jerked his head and Rick followed him outside. It was nearly dark but Daryl made straight for the woods. He waited for Rick at the treeline; when he’d caught up, Daryl resumed his pace. He moved through the trees like a dolphin through water; they seemed to part for him. Rick stumbled on a fallen branch and Daryl’s hand closed around his elbow, steadying him.

After a few minutes he gave up trying to keep his bearings and focused on staying half a step behind Daryl. Daryl moved so quietly it was like he was gliding on air, half an inch above the ground. Rick was acutely aware of the noise of his own footsteps, snapping twigs and crunching through dry leaves. Daryl seemed to anticipate his every false step and guided him over fallen logs and hidden ditches. The smell of pine was heavy on the air.

“So what’s the deal with yer divorce?” Daryl said, breaking the silence. He didn’t look at Rick, keeping his eyes trained on the ground.

“My—?” It wasn’t what he expected but he rolled with it, matching his stride to Daryl’s. “After our son was born, I was—distracted. I’d always wanted to be a father, and Carl was just so tiny and perfect and… I neglected Lori. She had an affair with my best friend and partner on the force. I found out. Shane transferred to Atlanta and Lori and I tried to make it work, but it… didn’t.”

Daryl nodded. He didn’t say anything.

“It’s amicable,” Rick went on, trying to fill the space between them. “No fighting over assets and we share Carl equally. She didn’t want the house, so I’m still living there. Thinking about selling it, though. Too big, too many…” _Memories_ he added silently.

“Oughta get rid of it, then,” Daryl said. He cleared his throat. “Listen, Rick…”

A jolt of electricity shot through him. It was the first time he could remember Daryl actually calling him by his name, not Kojak or Officer Friendly or some other barbed nickname he’d come up with. He liked the way his name sounded in Daryl’s mouth. Rich and dark, like chocolate.

“There’s sumthin wrong with me. ’S only fair, tellin ya like this before I—. Yeah. I get pissed off, an’ sometimes I can’t control it. Blow a fuse. Jus’ takes over my brain, like… Well, you probly got the gist back there.” He exhaled wearily, as if finding the words exhausted him. “Can deal with it when I’m on the bike, stunts or even just ridin… But when I aint got that, I drink. Or I get in fights. Swear ta ya though, Rick, I aint never hit a woman or a kid or nobody that couldn’t fight back.”

“I believe you,” Rick said firmly, without having to think about it. Sophia, that shy bird of a child, trusted him. Another image sprang to mind, unbidden: he pictured Daryl crouching above him on the bed, carefully warming the lube in one hand before he put it to use. Daryl had been wild and magical last night, but he could make his touch gentle. “I believe you,” he repeated.

“Dunno what the kid told you,” Daryl said, his voice even softer, “but I had an old man like Sophia’s. Real mean drunk, all-round vicious sonuvabitch. ’S probly obvious, lookin at me. Know you cops like ta psychologize that shit.” He chuckled humorlessly. “Me’n Merle aint no different.”

“I haven’t seen your brother in years,” Rick said carefully, “but I know you’re nothing like that.”

“Don’t really know me, do ya though?” He sat down on a broad fallen tree and nodded for Rick to do the same. “Best when I’m on my own, jus’ ridin for miles, or out huntin in the woods. Half the time, can’t stand ta be round people anyway.”

“That’s normal. Or,” he searched for the right words, “it’s understandable. Everyone has to get away sometimes.”

“Not like me.” Daryl brooded darkly. “Fer me, it’s… chronic. Whatever ya wanna call it. An’ I aint got a choice, less I want all hell ta break loose. ’M no good with people, man.”

“Daryl…” He tried to catch his eye, but Daryl was staring resolutely down at his hands, clasped between his knees. “Daryl, I don’t think you’re an alcoholic.”

Daryl rounded on him, disbelief and anger etched into the sharp lines of his face. “Course I fucken am, you saw me back there! ’Sides, it’s hereditary, ’s in the blood, an’ I got it through both sides a the family.”

“It’s a predisposition, not a guarantee,” Rick told him. “And you were doing it on purpose during dinner. You were pissed off, I get that. But it was a choice, not a compulsion. I know what the real thing looks like, and you do too.”

“Think you’re givin me the benefit of the doubt,” Daryl said.

“Maybe I am. Maybe you should, too.”

Daryl snorted. But he didn’t disagree. He seemed deep in thought, and Rick didn’t push him. “This was my house,” he said after a while.

“What?” Rick spun around, hardly able to see anything in the dark.

“Yer sittin on it.”

Rick looked down, and what he had thought was a fallen tree turned out to be the remains of a crumbling brick foundation, overgrown with moss. “This is where you grew up?”

“Moved out here with my daddy an’ my brother after my momma died. I was ten, maybe. Eleven? Lived here til I turned eighteen an’ hit the road ta find Merle.” The tree cover was too thick for stars, and Daryl’s expression was opaque.

“How’d it get like this?” he asked.

“Dunno. Came ta check things out a few days after I got back, an’ this was what I found.”

“What happened to your dad?”

“He died.” Daryl didn’t elaborate, and Rick decided he didn’t need to know. Not tonight, anyhow.

“I think I like the RV better,” he said lightly.

“Yer tellin me, Kojak,” Daryl said, matching his tone. “Aint got a lotta happy memories here,” he added. “Even the moonshine still’s gone.”

Rick got up and crouched between Daryl’s spread legs. He rested a hand on each thigh, feeling the hard muscles tense and relax under his fingers. Even through the denim, Daryl’s skin radiated warmth. He reached up and Daryl leaned down. It was soft and shallow, no teeth or tongues. He edged closer. Daryl’s belt was already undone so it was easy to unbutton his jeans and slide the zipper down. He inhaled deeply and Daryl’s particular scent flooded his nostrils: an unwashed, earthy musk. Heady, male.

Daryl was already half-hard when Rick freed him from his jeans. He wrapped a hand around the base of his cock and it swelled to fullness in his grip. “Rick?” Daryl said questioningly, and the faint tremor in his voice gave Rick the confidence he needed to lower his mouth.

He went too far and choked. Saliva gathered in his mouth and he waited until his gag reflex was under control before he continued. Daryl’s skin tasted salty. A thick vein pulsed under his tongue. His tempo was jerky; he couldn’t quite remember all the finer points and he doubted his technique was much better in college. Daryl’s fingers settled in his hair, fanning out across his temples to steady his head. A slight pressure urged him up until he was just mouthing at the tip, then halfway down again. He realized Daryl was helping him and gave himself over to the mild hands in his hair. His rhythm became smoother, deeper. Daryl’s ragged breathing was loud in his ears. He looked up and saw the strong line of Daryl’s throat, his head thrown back. But his eyes were open, and slowly he lowered his chin and looked at Rick, too.

Flushing under Daryl’s hungry eyes, he noticed his own throbbing erection. He palmed himself through his pants, too focused his task to do much more.

Daryl was quiet, no cursing or moaning, but his fingers were tightening in Rick’s hair, other hand clutching desperately at his shoulder. Encouraged, Rick redoubled his efforts, pushing past Daryl’s protective hold to deepthroat him, maybe, nearly, for a second or two. Daryl shuddered. “Should probly get off now,” he whispered hoarsely. “Else—”

“Nuh uh,” Rick said thickly, and the vibrations of his voice seemed to push Daryl over. The sudden burst of hot liquid across his tongue wasn’t quite what he remembered or expected, but he swallowed gamely with a rush of pride: he’d brought Daryl off, and done a decent enough job by the end result. He unfastened his pants and began to jerk his own dick feverishly. Fifteen seconds maybe and it was over. He swore and managed to land most of it on the grass, though he probably spattered some on Daryl’s boot, too.

He fell back on his ass, panting.

“Aw fuck,” he heard Daryl’s voice from above. “Was gonna do that for ya, if you’da just gave me a damn second.”

“Couldn’t wait,” he said breathlessly. “Not after seeing you.”

Daryl dragged him up into a rough, biting kiss. He was hesitant at first; didn’t it repulse Daryl to taste himself on Rick’s tongue? Apparently not, so he melted into it like butter. He sagged against Daryl’s muscular frame and let him do the work of keeping them both upright for the time being.

At last Daryl pushed him away gently. “Should be headin back,” he said. Rick must have looked reluctant, because he added, “Less you wanna sleep out here.”

He stood, and pulled Rick to his feet, too. “C’mon."

* 

Inside, with the dog whimpering pitifully at the door, Daryl slipped his hands under Rick’s shirt. Rick’s body spasmed and slackened and Daryl felt the hard peaks of his nipples against the barked palms of his hands.

He maneuvered Rick to the edge of the bed and finished getting him naked. He hooked his fingers around the worn elastic of his boxers and pulled them down his legs. Then he drew Rick’s knees apart, almost overcome by something like fondness. It was exactly how he remembered it—the hair, the cock, and the hole, still gaping slightly from last night’s sex. He finished the job with lube and several fingers. He looked down at Rick, glistening with a fresh sheen of sweat and bucking impatiently against the mattress. Their eyes locked and Rick’s were the bluest thing he’d ever seen, bluer than a June sky, bluer than those little flowers that grew at the side of the road. He slid his hands under Rick’s buttocks to spread him wide, and entered him like a fucking piledriver.

*

Daryl dreamed he was back in the metal cage at the carnival. Riding round and round, faster and faster, and when it came time to stop he realized there was no clutch, no brake, no controls at all. He could hear the roar of the crowd, and the engine grew hotter and hotter between his knees. The whole motorcycle was vibrating and he was spinning so fast he didn’t know if he was up or down. He flung himself off, and fell into empty space.

He landed in his own bed, in his own body.

A body that was intertwined with Rick’s. He’d made sure there was a half-foot of space between them when the lights went off, but slumber had closed the distance. He couldn’t look at Rick’s face now, so close to his own on the pillow.

The dog was lying on the floor beside the bed, and she thumped her tail when she saw he was awake. He pulled his pants and boots on and jerked his head at her. They went outside together.

The morning was cool and clear. His head was pounding slightly, not quite hungover, but worse for wear from all the cheap beer. He whistled for Billie. They ambled into the trees, pissing side by side under a massive pine. Then they went deeper, out of sight of the RV. He shivered and buttoned up his shirt, missing the warmth of the bed and Rick’s body.

Rick. He’d told him too much last night, hadn’t he? Broken his own rules. That fucking cop just insinuated himself closer and closer, didn’t he, and Daryl hadn’t done a damn thing to stop it. Hell, he’d encouraged it, pathetic bastard that he was. Spilling his guts because he didn’t know how to apologize for being a drunk, for being a dick. Flawed as ever, in the drunkest tense.

He was finding it hard to inhale. Like he was carrying something heavy on his shoulders; everything south of the Mason-Dixon, maybe. There was none of the mellowness he’d felt after their first night together, only raw-edged panic.

While Billie sniffed at some deer scat, he squatted down in the loam and wrapped his arms around his knees and rocked back and forth. He could feel a familiar presence taking shape so he closed his eyes and tugged at his hair, trying to make it go away.

But Merle was already swimming into focus behind his eyelids. _What ho, baby bro?_

“Fuck off, Merle.”

_Knew it was only a matter of time, without me lookin after ya. You sure know how ta get yerself inta all kindsa shit, dontcha?_

“I’m not the one in prison,” he snapped.

Merle laughed. _Yeah, you’d love prison, wouldntcha? Much easier ta make yerself somebody’s lil bitch behind bars, spare ya the trouble of looking._

“I aint nobody’s bitch,” he rapped back. “Aint like that with Rick.”

_Rick, yeah. D’you know he arrested me once?_

“Everybody’s arrested you once.”

_Yeah, him’n his jackass partner. I taught them a thing or two, I’ll tell ya that._

“Sure ya did, Merle.”

_You best watch that attitude, Darlena, or I’ll hafta give_ you _a lesson, too_. Merle usually won when they fought. He was taller, for one thing, and bulkier. But in their last year together, Daryl had started winning some, too. He was quicker, more agile, and he fought mean and dirty. Plus he could outshoot Merle, any weapon you like.

He didn’t say any of that out loud, but Merle was in his head, so he heard it anyway.

_That right, you little bitch?_ Merle said. _I’d kick your faggotty ass halfway ta Tennessee with one hand tied behind my back_.

“Aint a fag,” he mumbled, hands knotted so tightly in his own hair that his eyes were starting to smart. “You don’t know shit.”

_Oh, I know plenty, baby bro. I know all bout you whorin yourself round them parkin lots, sneakin inta bathrooms an’ back alleys. I know everything about you, an’ you fucken disgust me._

“You aint real,” he rasped, even while his brain was going _I disgust me, too._ “Get lost, jackass, I aint talkin to ya no more.”

Something wet hit his face. He reached for his knife, his eyes flew open—but it was just the dog, come to sit next to him and licking his cheek. He pushed her away gently. “’S alright, Billie, ’s good…” He was so angry he was shaking, so angry he wanted to fight the trees, the rocks, the ground itself. Billie whined and licked his arm. For a fraction of a second he saw himself hurling her into a tree, but he knocked that aside. His da and Merle used to vent their fury on animals, but he’d never pulled that kind of shit, it sickened him. Animals didn’t fucking talk, which made them superior, honestly. He patted Billie’s grubby fur. If he could pretend it was the dog who needed comforting, maybe he wouldn’t need to get up and hit something.

He saw a rabbit and his stomach rumbled. Not half expecting to hit it, he threw his knife. But his aim was true and the thing died instantly with his knife in its gut. Billie leapt to her feet. “Oh no you fucken don’t, bitch—”

But to his immense surprise, she took the rabbit in her jaws and trotted back to him, laying the corpse at his feet. He stared at her. She wagged her tail. Maybe she wasn’t useless after all, he decided. They’d go hunting, that always cleared his mind.

“C’mon, Bil.”

* 

When Rick opened his eyes, Daryl was gone. When he looked out in the yard, Daryl was gone. When he checked the garage, peered in the shop, and even scanned the treeline, Daryl was gone. After an hour passed and Daryl was still gone, he’d had enough and went home to shower and change before his shift.

He was angry.

Last night had been testing. To say the least. The ferocity of Daryl’s anger hadn’t quite frightened him, but it had certainly made an impression. A temper so mercurial was a force to be reckoned with, he knew that from his years on the force and his friendship with Shane. His mother had called Shane a loose cannon; what did that make Daryl, then, an IED?

But Daryl had begun to open up to him in the woods last night. That was something, it had to mean something, that _they_ were something… weren’t they? The sex had been rougher, more purely physical than the first time. He’d come with almost embarrassing alacrity under the relentless onslaught of Daryl’s short, brutal thrusts. There was no kissing afterward. He’d felt vulnerable, diminished, watching Daryl move around, putting away the leftovers, letting the dog in for the night, still carelessly naked from the waist down. They fell asleep with half a foot of space between them.

_How the hell do people do this?_ he wondered, standing under the shower. Just fuck and go, no questions, no attachments? Daryl burned hot and cold, like sometimes he cared and sometimes he didn’t. Rick had got the sense that Daryl felt things deeply, was full to running-over with thoughts and emotions and opinions that he kept a determined lid on. Like he didn’t know how to filter and express them, and didn’t trust himself enough to try.

_No wonder he was angry all the time._

That was supplied by his detached cop brain, just as eager to explain and rationalize and psychologize as Daryl had accused. Embarrassed, Rick shoved it away. He turned his thoughts inward. What did all this make _him_? Surely he wanted Daryl more than he’d ever wanted anybody, with a desperation that bordered on sickness. He knew it was vulgar to make comparisons to Lori; at any rate, what he felt for Daryl was so different that the comparisons hardly computed at all.

A different kind of intimacy, that was what he wanted. He’d run his hands over Daryl’s muscles, harder and better defined than his own, and felt only awe, not envy. He’d put his mouth on Daryl and Daryl had shown him how to do it, without pushing or demanding. Daryl had been inside of him, twice now, and the revelation of fullness was so astonishing and wonderful that he didn’t need to think _what that made him_ because it just _was._

But on the other hand was Daryl’s unpredictability, his moods, his strange atavistic belief in genetics and heredity and family. There had to be a reason beyond modesty why he wouldn’t let Rick push his unbuttoned shirt over his shoulders, no matter how hot and sweaty they became. The abrupt flare-ups of dominance, when he pinned Rick’s hands so he couldn’t touch, turned his face so they couldn’t kiss. Why Daryl was so goddamn quiet, jaw locked in tense guarded stoicism, coming without making a sound. What he meant when he said _I aint no queer, I aint nuthin,_ and that _nuthin_ was such a hollow, despairing word, laced with self-recrimination and disgust…

So many times Daryl had disappeared on him now. Rick knew the signs, knew he should _move on_. Find his next rebound, as Shane would say. He was already thirty, he ought to be moving his life forward, not waiting around for a taciturn biker who seemed indifferent at best. He had his pride, too. He wouldn’t go back looking for Daryl, or make a fool of himself moping around…

Daryl had such a strange, contradictory face. Could he have any idea how _seductive_ his eyes were, even shadowed with fatigue or narrowed in suspicion? Did he know how that tiny mole above his lip demanded to be kissed? Had he ever been able to look in a mirror and see past his rough edges, to see what Rick saw?

This wasn’t a productive line of thought. Slightly ashamed, Rick had to rub a quick one out before he left for work. 

 


	8. putting out fire

Daryl was incomplete without his bike.

He needed the noisy engine to envelope him in its protective wall of sound. He craved the smell of gasoline to make him giddy as he roared down the back roads.

He also knew he couldn’t fix anything else until he’d fixed _that_ first. So for the next week he poured all his focus into the Triumph with the kind of single-minded concentration that might have made him a good student, if he’d ever tried. He got up at dawn and worked until T-Dog arrived, worked through his lunch hour, and went back to it after they closed the service station for the night. He did his best work when he was like this, shutting off the non-essential parts of his brain and thinking with his hands. He hardly remembered to eat or drink and when he toppled into bed, exhausted, he slept deep and dreamless.

He knew the Bonnie was a masterpiece when he was finished. Even T-Dog, who didn’t know shit about motorcycles, got excited when he saw the bike sitting there, sparkling under the sun with a fresh coat of paint. A customer, dropping off a BMW, asked to take a picture, and when Daryl shrugged, the city-slicker whipped out his cellphone and snapped away, kneeling on the ground in his expensive suit pants to get the engine up close.

Maybe it wasn’t much, but it gave Daryl the edge he needed. He talked to T-Dog first. Then he took a couple days to prepare. When everything was ready, he loaded up the truck and drove away. 

* 

Every summer, Rick and Lori took a weeklong holiday. Never very far, just to the coast or maybe Florida. It wasn’t until Morgan was wishing him _bon voyage_ one Friday that he realized he never canceled those vacation days after the divorce. Dismayed, he tried to back out, but Morgan advised him to take the time anyway: “Maybe you should slow down a bit, man. You been going at a clip. Why waste the days? They won’t roll over in September.” Ford concurred, as did the Sheriff, and Rick found himself driving home with the prospect of a lonely week spent rattling around his house. He wouldn’t even have Carl that weekend: Lori was taking their son to meet his extended relatives at a family reunion in Richmond. He felt irrationally angry, at Lori, at Morgan, at everyone down at the station who’d so cheerily waved him goodbye, like he was the lucky one—when he would have given anything to be back in his patrol car or even chained to his desk with a stack of case reports. Even in the best of circumstances he never did well with solitude or idleness; his restless brain was his own worst enemy.

A large green pickup truck sat in front of his house, blocking the driveway. Infuriated, he parked on the street and stomped over, ticket book ready in his hand. Then he realized there was a person leaning against the truck and that person was Daryl.

His heart began to pound. Daryl was lounging against the driver’s side door, smoking a cigarette. He straightened up as Rick approached and dropped the cigarette, grinding it out with the toe of his boot.

“Hey,” he said in his gravelly voice, squinting into the sunlight. “Took ya long enough.”

“I was at the station,” Rick said. Then: “How did you know where I live?”

“Yellow Pages,” Daryl shrugged.

“I didn’t know they still printed those,” Rick said. For a moment he’d forgotten he was mad at Daryl, that he’d been dropped without a word for more than a week. Resentment warred with excitement; he made his voice cool when he asked, “So what are you doing here? Didn’t think I’d be seeing you again.”

Daryl scoffed and fiddled with the frayed hem of his shirt. “Thought wrong, Kojak.” Then he screwed up his face and grimaced. “Listen… Don’t always know how ta explain myself, why I do the shit that I do. Shoulda called, maybe, or found ya sooner, but…”

Rick folded his arms. His senses were clamoring with want: Daryl’s eyes had gone azure in the soft afternoon light, his bare arms were tan and alluring, and he was even _clean_. But there were holes in his jeans and Rick wanted to slide his finger into the largest tear and caress the scarred and bony knee that lay underneath.

“This aint my best self,” Daryl said. “Dunno if I even got a good self, but this aint it. Livin in town, a stone’s throw from where I grew up, screwin around with a uniform…”

Rick tilted his head and said nothing. It twisted his guts, watching Daryl fumble for the words that seemed to pain him so deeply, but something cold and aloof kept him from interrupting and offering the same exculpating platitudes he’d used in the woods. _Everyone has to get away. You’re nothing like your family. You’re not an alcoholic._ The urge to fix and heal and smooth over was strong. But it hadn’t worked the first time: maybe he should have kept his mouth shut and stayed off his knees until Daryl had finished saying what he’d brought him out there to say.

“You off work?” Daryl said unexpectedly. “Got the weekend free?”

“I… yeah,” Rick said. “I’m on vacation, I guess.”

“Cool.” Daryl looked down, cracked his knuckles, and met Rick’s eyes again. “Wanna show you… Out in the woods, ya know, where there aint no city, aint no people. Can be different. _I_ can, I mean. Not such a fucken asshole. So yeah. If ya wanna.”

“Daryl,” Rick said, a bubble of hilarity rising in his throat, “are you asking me to go camping with you?”

“ _Camping_?” Daryl looked offended. “This aint the fucken Boy Scouts, Kojak. ’M askin if ya wanna, you know, go off the grid fer a bit.”

“With _you_ ,” Rick emphasized, smiling.

“Well, yeah.” Daryl rolled his eyes. “Couldn’t hunt by yerself, coulda ya?”

“Definitely not,” said Rick.

“So…” Daryl chewed his lip. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Rick confirmed, atingle with a happiness he hadn’t felt in months.

Daryl’s eyes crinkled up, the way they did when he was trying to hide a smile. “Got the stuff we need,” he said gruffly. “Aint gonna make ya rough it, we can stop at some motels ’long the way.”

“Where are we going?”

“I figured north. Then…” Daryl shrugged. “Wherever we want. There’s a lotta Carolina up there. Who knows, maybe we make it far as Virginia. Don’t matter ta me.”

“Me neither,” Rick said.

“Go on then, pack a bag.” Daryl gave the house a disparaging look. “I’ll wait out here.” He fished out a battered pack of cigarettes and shook one loose.

Rick hurtled inside, not caring if he looked overeager. He changed out of his uniform, threw some spare clothes in a duffle and rifled through the medicine cabinet. Some of Lori’s things were still there, the lavender-scented hand cream and the all-natural toothpaste he couldn’t stand. He grabbed his own toiletries, hesitated over a razor, and decided to leave it. If they were going off the grid, as Daryl had said, there was no reason for him to play the clean-cut lawman.

Outside again, he locked the front door and jogged over to the truck, tossing his things in back with Daryl’s.

He got a surprise when he opened the passenger door and Daryl’s mangy little dog jumped up, barking. “What’s _she_ doing here?” he demanded, and Daryl laughed.

“Bitch can hunt now, she earns her keep. ’Sides, she gave me them sad eyes an’ I couldn’t leave her behind.”

“How come _my_ sad eyes didn’t do the trick?” Rick wanted to know. He’d meant it facetiously, but Daryl was silent for a long moment before he started the engine.

“Know what Billie wants from me,” he said at last. “An’ I can give it ta her. Less sure bout you.”

“About what I want from you?”

“If I can give it to ya.”

*

They stopped at a roadside diner a couple hours later, and that was when he started feeling itchy. It was awkward, sitting across from Rick in a cramped little booth and not knowing where to put his feet. He watched the other diners out of the corners of his eyes—a couple families, some old folks, a smattering of solitary long-haul truckers—convinced they were ogling _him._ Him and Rick. He jumped when the waitress appeared at his elbow with a coffee pot, and he growled his order at her so she’d think twice before getting snooty with him. He wished they’d sat at the bar, because then their association would look circumstantial.

Rick didn’t say anything, just watched him carefully from across the table. It struck him anew, seeing him in the context of so many other people: Rick was a damn good-looking man. Women of all ages smiled at him, and it seemed there was a waitress to top off his coffee every time he took a sip. They were more grudging when it came to Daryl, not that he’d done anything to ingratiate himself, like Rick had with all his _please_ s and _thank you_ s. Their waitress placed Rick’s club sandwich ceremoniously before him and asked if there was anything else he’d like; she slammed Daryl’s pancakes down and didn’t offer to bring him extra syrup.

He curled an arm around his plate and ripped into his pancakes. He’d learned to be a quick eater. Leave something too long, and someone else would grab it. He snagged a bottle of syrup from the next table over and doused his food, then continued shoveling it down.

“Never would’ve pegged you for a sweet tooth,” Rick said, smiling.

He shrugged and licked his fingers clean. That made Rick’s eyes glaze over; he flexed his power a little more, running a forefinger through the syrup pooled on his plate and sucking it. Hollowing his cheeks as sensually as he could. It felt silly and sort of porn-y to him, but Rick’s mouth fell open and he looked half-hypnotized. Growing bolder, Daryl stretched out his leg and nudged his foot between Rick’s. He was gratified to see the man lose some of his composure, hastily flagging down the waitress and asking for the bill.

“Enjoying yourself?” Rick wanted to know, but he kept a straight face.

“Dunno what yer talkin about.” He wrapped the plain hamburger patty he’d ordered for Billie in a napkin, and led the way out to the parking lot. Rick followed, looking agitated, and wanted to know where they’d be stopping for the night.

“’Nother seventy miles or so,” he said, not because he cared, but because he was enjoying the feeling of control that the untended bulge in Rick’s pants gave him.

He rolled down the windows to let the cool night air inside the cab. Billie sat on Rick’s lap, hanging her head out the window. He thought about turning on the radio, but the silence was a good one, neither of them impatient to break it. Still, it took him a good twenty miles to work up the nerve to put his hand on Rick’s knee. It was a proprietary gesture and he didn’t feel entitled to claim anything yet. But he hadn’t touched the other man yet today, and Rick always seemed happy when he initiated contact. So he took his right hand off the wheel, reached across the bench, and dropped it lightly on Rick’s knee. Rick didn’t jump or flinch like _he_ would have done, just pressed up slightly into the touch.

Eventually, he spotted a sign for a wayside motor inn and took the next exit off the freeway. The parking lot was only a quarter full. “Imma get us a room,” he said, jumping out of the truck. “You stay put.” He had no intention of the two of them waltzing up to the office like a pair of dumb punks, only to be told it wasn’t policy to rent rooms to faggots. Rick didn’t seem to follow this line of thought, so he added, “We’re still in Georgia, man.”

He went to the office and paid the night manager for a room with one bed. The motel was almost as shitty as the one he’d stayed at in King County, but at least their room was around back, facing away from the road. There was no one to see Rick and Billie follow him inside. The room felt claustrophobic with all three of them in there. Rick’s shadow loomed large and menacing on the wall; Billie’s was the size of a small horse. “I’m gonna…” he mumbled vaguely, and shut himself inside the bathroom.

He washed his hands and face, listening to Rick talk softly to Billie and rustle through their bags. In the mirror, his eyes looked dark and inscrutable. He chewed his lip for a moment, then turned his back on his reflection. He fished something out of his pocket, undid his belt, and dropped his pants. The travel-size bottle of lube looked small and innocuous in his palm. He drizzled some on his fingers. Widened his stance, gritted his teeth. _Just fucking do it already._ The feel of his own finger made him shudder unpleasantly. But he’d made up his mind so he just pressed on doggedly, adding a second. The stretch and burn of the third sent a different kind of tingle down his spine. Even so, he kept his fingers shallow, not going anywhere near his prostate, just resolutely working himself open, lower lip clenched between his teeth. Then he pulled his pants back up and opened the door.

Rick sat on the edge of the bed, in profile to him. He could see a paw and a tail protruding from under the bed, and hoped Billie would stay there. Rick turned to him, running a hand through his hair. Already flushed and sweating, eyes gone big and dark. Daryl could practically smell the arousal on him.

“Get naked,” he ordered.

“Daryl—”

“Jus’ do it,” he barked and something in his voice must have made Rick comply, because he immediately did as he was told. Daryl had never seen a shirt unbuttoned so fast. Rick was less graceful getting rid of his boots, but after they were gone the jeans and underwear followed. Daryl stared. Rick’s whole body was elegantly constructed with a sculptor’s precision, from his proud jutting nose to the arches of his feet. The proportions of him were perfect, and Daryl wanted to pounce and run his hands and tongue across every perfect inch of him.

Instead, he kicked off his own boots and socks and put his hands on his belt. He unfastened it slowly and pulled it free of its loops. His pants shifted lower on his hips. He undid the button and pulled down the zipper.

He had never undressed like this before. The shyness, the dizziness, the painful shortness of breath, everything he had always felt when undressing before someone (and he never undressed all the way), all that was gone. He was standing in front of Rick poised, insolent, bathed in light, and astonished at his sudden discovery of the gestures, previously unimaginable to him, of a slow, provocative striptease. Rick had the good sense not to move a muscle. Daryl took in his hungry glances, starting to enjoy each individual stage of his exposure. When everything else was gone, he unbuttoned his shirt, and with a decisive little shrug, cast it off.

He marched over to Rick and shoved him back down on the bed. He had a condom clutched in his fist; he ripped the foil packet open with his teeth. Rick scooted further back on the mattress and spread his legs. But when Daryl crouched over him, it was Rick’s cock he reached for, Rick’s cock that he sheathed in rubber.

“Daryl—” Rick’s eyes had gone wide and searching. “This isn’t something you have to…” He trailed off, his hand coming to rest on Daryl’s hip. His thumb pressed into the groove and Daryl gasped, toes curling.

“Aint it?” he said quizzically, when he’d found his voice. His brain had been doing anxious math while they drove north, reminding him that he’d already fucked Rick twice so he’d probably better start putting out too, before the man lost interest. Somebody like Rick Grimes would never play bitch to somebody like him, not for long, not after the curiosity had worn off.

“Course not,” Rick said, starting to rub small circles into his hip. His whole body seized, and a drop of precum landed on Rick’s stomach. This wasn’t what he’d planned—he’d planned on seducing Rick with his open asshole, paying his dues as quick as possible, then getting them back on safer ground. But with the way he was quivering and gasping, it was starting to feel more like Rick was seducing _him._ And doing a mighty fine job of it, too, because suddenly _he_ was flushing with curiosity, keen to know what Rick would feel like inside him.

Rick’s other hand came up, stroking over his ribs and circling a nipple with his thumb. He hissed; the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. The hand on his hip squeezed firmly, then moved higher.

“Don’t touch my back.” Suddenly alert, he snapped out of his daze and grabbed Rick’s hand before it could migrate further. And for a second, with his erection flagging and Rick’s brow creasing, the night was on the verge of collapse.

Then: “Okay,” Rick said easily, settling both hands resolutely on Daryl’s hips and doing that _thing_ with his thumbs that made him writhe. He sagged lower as his legs started to tremble, practically sitting aside Rick’s stomach as the excess of lube he’d used started to leak out of him.

“What…” Rick’s eyes registered first confusion, then something like disappointment. “I’d have done that for you, you know,” he said quietly.

He shrugged impatiently. “Took care of it.”

“Did you think I wouldn’t want to?”

“Dunno.” He was becoming giddy with the continued pressure on his hips; Rick was mapping out new erogenous zones all over his body. Impatiently, he bucked his pelvis against Rick’s hands, seeking a friction that wasn’t there.

“Foreplay’s part of the fun,” Rick told him sternly. “You took your time with me, I wanna do the same for you—it doesn’t feel right like this.”

“D’you wanna fuck or not?” he demanded, grabbing hold of his cock and giving it a loose stroke.

Rick’s hips moved convulsively in response, and he clutched the bedspread with white-knuckled hands. But: “Let’s do something else,” he panted, still stubborn as hell. “Or stop…”

It was damn decent of him; hell, maybe it was the most considerate thing anyone had ever said to him. And Rick wasn’t lying, either: his honest face was glowing with sincerity, with concern, and with something that made Daryl’s heart expand even as it made his dick twitch.

“Rick!” he growled, and the man’s eyes snapped to his face. “Jus’ shut the fuck up, okay?”

Rick didn’t, of course. “I’m afraid that I’d be using you if—”

He swooped down and pressed his lips briefly against Rick’s. “You aint,” he promised, his cheeks blushing rosy with trust.

He tossed his sweaty hair out of his eyes and crawled back until he was straddling Rick’s hips again. Then he wrapped his hand around the base of Rick’s cock and began to lower himself. He grunted a little when the head breached him, hotter and thicker than anything he remembered, but managed to nod reassuringly before Rick got spooked. The man was obviously afraid of hurting him—an interesting discovery he filed away for later. The feeling of _now-ness_ was too potent to defer when their bodies were finally coming together again. He took his time, sliding down inch by painstaking inch, while Rick made the most exquisite sounds below him. Grunts, gasps, moans—noisy bastard, he thought fondly, uncaring if the sounds bled through the walls.

Fully seated at last, he threw back his head and arched his back. He might have cried out, too, but his voice was gone. The sight of Rick, straining below him, fingers clutching his waist hard enough to bruise… he hoped they would. He raised himself up and nearly off, then slammed back down again. Rick gave a full-throated yell; somebody pounded on the adjacent wall. He clapped his hand over the man’s mouth, but Rick just sucked his fingers between his lips.

He rode Rick hard, raising and lowering himself, rolling his hips with each descent, grinding and rotating until he found an angle that made his muscles seize up. “Touch me,” he rasped, as Rick’s body began to jump and stutter beneath him, “want you ta touch me _now._ ” He peeled Rick’s hand off his hip and brought it to his dick. Rick got with the program fast, squeezing him tightly and starting to stroke, a little bit out of sync with what their hips were doing. He thrust up into Rick’s fingers and down on his cock and couldn’t have said what it felt like, except he had a vague impression of stars.

Then Rick’s hot release was erupting inside him. Roughly he rode him through it, close, so close, and Rick’s hand kept up a jerky rhythm even as his eyes rolled back in his head and he moaned through the final throes of his orgasm. Daryl wrenched his fingers out of Rick’s mouth so he could bite down on them when he came, too.

Legs trembling, he pulled off and collapsed on his front beside Rick.

* 

Daryl’s eyes were closed. Pushing up on an elbow to remove the condom, Rick saw what Daryl had so long concealed from him. He ran his hand over the scars that had transformed his back into a topographical map of suffering.

Daryl held perfectly still, so still Rick knew he wasn’t asleep. Wherever he moved his fingers they came in contact with ridges and welts. The only unmarked skin was occupied by two angry demons tattooed on Daryl’s right shoulder, and he was even more afraid to touch _them._ Their brooding wings and vicious claws stood guard over the wreckage, daring him to _just try._

“It’s fine,” he said, though of course it wasn’t, it was terrible, and he could feel the bile rising in his throat. “I mean,” he went on, searching for the right words, “it’s not, but you’re perfect.”

Daryl’s quiet laugh was muffled in the pillow. “Nobody ever called me _that_ before, Kojak.”

“No, you _are_ ,” he insisted, lightly tracing the scars with his forefinger. “These look old.”

“Yeah,” Daryl said. “Kept hopin they’d fade, but…” he shrugged slightly. “Branded fer life, I guess. My pa’s way of making sure I’d never forget him after he was gone.”

“Your…” He was so cold the sweat froze on his body. Ice crystals gathered in his lungs.

“Nuthin like hurtin somebody ta make him hear good,” Daryl said quietly. “Toldja before, the old man was a nasty drunk.”

“I didn’t… you didn’t…” Dark spots flickered before his eyes. “I could kill him.”

“Bastard’s already dead, but I ’preciate the offer,” Daryl said, beginning to sound aggravated. “C’mon, Rick, I don’t wanna talk about it no more.”

Even the sound of his own name couldn’t call him back. The force of his feelings for Daryl crashed over him like water breaching a dam, and he reeled, desperate to put back together what he couldn’t fix.

And then the darkness took him.

* 

Through his matted curtain of hair, Daryl saw the switch flip. He sat up quickly and reached for Rick even as the other man’s features distorted into grotesque mask, like melted wax. Sincerity, affection, goodwill—all the traits he’d come to rely on had fled, to be replaced with ones he recognized from staring at his own reflection in the mirror. Wrath, vengeance, danger—but where he burned hot, Rick burned cold, cold, cold as ice.

Pity was lost to him and empathy was new; it astonished him that someone could feel so much on his behalf, someone who wasn’t kin to him, someone who didn’t owe him nothing. The lethal energy pounding through Rick’s body didn’t frighten him; it humbled him even as it turned him on, knowing it was all for _him._

He was one deranged motherfucker, raised on so much violence that it was the only language he spoke, the clutch of life and the fist of love, fighting and fucking and everything in between. He wanted it, hell, he _welcomed_ it; he wanted to fuck him like this, on the very precipice of madness. Something feral rippled up through his skin—

No. Breathing hard, he forced that part of himself down, ruthlessly stamping it out. _No._ He couldn’t, they couldn’t. They were a volatile combination, he’d known from the moment he laid eyes on Rick. Something not-quite-right about both of them, they could destroy each other if they went down that road. That was one reason he’d run from Rick, all those times, because he could feel the danger simmering below the surface. Letting Rick into his life would be like putting out fire with gasoline.

But there was tenderness, and respect, too. Gentle touches and quiet words. They could choose that, and maybe it didn’t have to be ugly. He didn’t want it to be. Still, it reassured him that Rick was a little off his rocker. Made him think maybe _he_ had something to offer too, steady hands and a soft voice when the man short-circuited.

He flattened his palm against Rick’s heart, the muscle pounding like it was trying to punch its way out of his ribs. “Rick?” he said. “Was years ago, kay? ’S over. Everything’s good, man. Me. You. We’re good.” He cupped Rick’s cheek and waited til those electric eyes had focused on him. “Don’t need ya to go crazy over what’s dead an’ buried, hear me?”

“I hear you,” Rick said obediently, but the dangerous glint was still there in his eyes. “I just don’t… I don’t like anyone hurting my people.”

“ _Your_ people?” he repeated, incredulously.

“Nobody hurts the people I care about,” Rick said flatly. “ _Nobody_.”

“I’m one of ‘your people’ now, huh?” It should have rankled, it should have sent him tumbling into his clothes and flying from the room. He should have been gathering his fists; instead he was nearly purring like a housecat.

He pushed Rick back against the pillows and draped himself over him, kissing the fight right out of him. Soon Rick was kissing him back, body warm and pliant once more. “Yer one crazy motherfucker,” he said in between kisses, biting Rick’s lips. “Madder’n a March hare, Doctor Jekyll, Mister Hyde…”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did promise a road trip, after all!


	9. the passenger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for falling behind on comments again - I had an overwhelmingly busy week. But I guessed you'd rather wait longer for replies than the next chapter, so here it is!

Plastered to Daryl’s side and rutting against his hip was a graceless way to greet the day. Rick’s eyes flew open. Daryl was awake of course, arms folded behind his head. When the assault on his leg abruptly ceased, he turned his head on the pillow to look at Rick. His eyes were dancing with amusement.

“I’m sorry,” Rick groaned, utterly mortified. “I must have been dreaming, or—something…”

“’S okay,” Daryl said. “C’mere.” A powerful arm curled around his midsection and Rick found himself sprawling across Daryl’s chest. “Sit on my face.”

“Wh-what?” His sleep-fogged brain stuttered.

“What I said.” Daryl hauled him forward into position as he protested and wrung his hands and wondered if he was still dreaming.

“I’ll hurt—won’t I smother you, or—” A sort of high-pitched whimper escaped him as his balls smacked against Daryl’s chin. It was too much, the hot mouth, the wickedly dancing eyes, the barest hint of teeth that made his whole body shudder.

In the end he couldn’t handle it, his jellied legs gave out and Daryl tossed him onto his back like a depleted starfish and finished the job crouched between his splayed thighs. “Fucken useless,” he might have said, and Rick scarcely had time to collect himself before Daryl was rolling out of bed, dragging his shirt over his head and reaching for his pants. “D’you want me to…”

“Naw,” Daryl said, fastening his belt. “Wanna hit the road ’fore traffic picks up.”

Rick had almost forgotten they would be traveling; overnight his reality had shrunk to the size of this motel room, close and stuffy, smelling of their sweat and semen. “Right,” he said intelligently, and reached down for his boxers.

“Didn’t come all the way out here ta screw around,” Daryl said, scooping up the dog and carrying her into the bathroom so she could drink from the tap. “Not _jus’_ ta screw around,” he amended over the sound of running water, and any beginnings of a knot in Rick’s stomach dissipated. They had a bad track record with mornings back home—but today he hadn’t woken up alone in a cold bed, he’d woken up with _Daryl._ The man was brusque, but not aloof, as they gathered up their things, and Rick felt his spirits rising as they walked outside. He went back to the truck while Daryl took Billie over to the grass to piss and did the same beside her, apparently unimpressed with indoor plumbing.

By the end of the first hour his stomach was grumbling and his head buzzing from lack of caffeine. Daryl didn’t say anything but he took the next exit off the interstate and pulled into a Burger King drive-thru. Two breakfast specials and a large cup of coffee later, Rick was feeling considerably more alert. He began to take in the countryside whizzing past them, a blur of densely packed pines and heavy undergrowth. The sun was turning the sky orange, imprinting itself on his retinas, but Daryl’s pickup didn’t have shades so he squinted into the light and tried to figure out where they were.

“Still in Georgia.” Daryl answered the unasked question without turning his head, and Rick shivered. It was uncanny that Daryl always seemed to know what was going on in his head, but _nice,_ somehow. Lori had frequently lost her temper with him when she thought he wasn’t communicating properly, but that was because she was always waiting for words, for explanations. She had never managed to interpret his body language or read his silences as effortlessly as Daryl seemed to do. Daryl, on the other hand, would recoil from an avalanche of words, shutting down as quickly in verbal conversation as Lori did in silence. Different, Rick thought, with a flash of guilt for falling into comparisons again, not better. He pulled out his phone and started tapping out a text message to Lori, asking her to give Carl his love. He could feel a slight chill coming off Daryl by the time he finished. “Just checking in to see how my son is,” he said.

Daryl nodded. His jaw was tight.

“I’m not gonna spend the trip on my phone,” he said. “I’m not one of those guys who’s addicted to their—… But Carl, you know… I can’t go _completely_ off the grid.”

“Uh-huh,” Daryl said, and he didn’t react when Rick rested a hand on his knee.

“I wish _you’d_ get a phone,” he diverted, because the subject of Carl seemed to make Daryl uncomfortable. “You’re probably the last person in the whole world without one.”

“Don’t wanna phone,” Daryl said gruffly. “Don’t need one.”

“What about emergencies?”

“Next of kin’s in lock-up, aint accountable fer no one.”

“But what about you, if you got into an accident or something—”

Daryl shrugged. “Who’d wanna know?”

Rick didn’t know if he was fishing, testing out some insecurity about their relationship, or if he genuinely thought no one would care. Daryl wasn’t the petulant or self-pitying type, so with a little rush of disappointment he figured it was probably the latter.

“The guy you work for, he’d wanna know. And me. I’d want you to call me,” he said firmly, and he thought he saw, hoped he saw, the set of Daryl’s jaw relax a little.

“Radiation poisoning. Cell phones give ya cancer.”

“And cigarettes don’t?”

Daryl looked over at him and grinned wolfishly. “Yer a fucken cop, Kojak. You pick yer poison, same as me.”

He grimaced, and let it go. The day was too fine, and Daryl’s disposition too fickle, to spoil it with bickering. He splayed his hand wider across Daryl’s thigh and squeezed a little, feeling the muscles jump under his fingers. The corner of Daryl’s mouth curled up slightly.

“Sorry about last night,” Rick said softly. “For getting so worked up about…” He trailed off and bit the inside of his cheek, realizing Daryl probably wouldn’t want to talk about it.

“An’ people say _I_ got a temper,” Daryl commented. Briefly he took his hand off the wheel and rested it atop Rick’s. “Don’t worry bout it. ’S nuthin I can’t handle, Rick.”

It was said casually, offhand, but it still sent a rush of warmth through Rick’s whole body. Daryl had seen him, seen the worst of him, when that cold alien anger took over his brain and turned him crazy and murderous, and he had managed to drain all the venom right out of him with his rough kisses and unyielding arms. _’S nuthin I can’t handle, Rick._ Always prone to over-thinking, Rick wondered if that _can’t_ , in the present tense, meant Daryl expected him to go crazy again. Or, he thought more hopefully, perhaps Daryl was reassuring him that he would be there to _handle it_ if he did.

An hour later his phone buzzed with a text message. Lori, telling him Carl was doing well and having fun with his cousins. Seconds later she sent along a photo, Carl splashing happily in a wading pool. Rick’s eyes burned with tears as he stared down at the picture, almost overcome with longing for his son. It was excruciating, knowing he would never be more than fifty percent of Carl’s life—

“That yer wife?” Daryl said neutrally.

“Ex-wife,” he corrected, surreptitiously wiping his nose. “She sent me a picture. Wanna see?”

“Kay,” Daryl said; Rick had expected him to refuse. He passed the phone over and Daryl squinted down at the image for a moment before handing it back. “Kid’s got yer eyes,” he said. “Woulda known he was yours, even if nobody told me.”

Rick found the phrasing a little odd, _even if nobody told me_ , but he was grateful that Daryl hadn’t flinched away from the idea of Carl this time.

They drove all morning, stopping at another diner for lunch. In public Daryl withdrew into himself, like a turtle retracting into its shell. He inhaled his sandwich without seeming to taste it and he was curt to the waitress, all the while darting his eyes about the room. He insisted on paying their tab this time, but as he led the way out the door Rick covertly augmented his stingy tip with a couple more crumpled bills. If Daryl noticed, he didn’t say anything. Back in the car he was loose-limbed and easy, handing the keys over to Rick and settling into the passenger seat with the dog in his lap.

“Christ I hate em,” he said a few minutes later when they were back on the interstate, catching the drift of Rick’s preoccupation. “Fucken sanctimonious self-righteous assholes, they’d squash me out like a damn bug if they could.”

“I don’t think anyone was out to start a fight,” Rick said neutrally, conjuring up the usual clientele of retirees, families, and solitary long haulers. But he _had_ detected a certain wariness in the people around them, seen the way the waitress’s bright smile slipped when she turned from him to Daryl. It puzzled him. Daryl was a handsome man, strong and well-built. Sure, he was unshaven and his shirts were frayed around the seams where he’d torn the sleeves out, but he was no less presentable than most of the men in there. Rick supposed there was something unsettling about his looks, the way his eyes slanted up with his cheekbones, like an antelope mask. The intensity of his stare, the restless energy in his fingers. He frightened people.

“Y’see Rick, people like me are shit, crawled outta the world’s asshole so yer nice law-abidin citizens gottta reason ta feel superior about themselves. Drunks, thieves, junkies an’ whores. Can’t get no lower.” Daryl’s voice was light, with a sing-song quality that made the hairs on the back of Rick’s neck stand up. “But we’re like the ticks, man, fucken impossible ta get rid of. Keep on multiplyin. Preyin on whoever we can. Colored folks, mostly, cos they’re the only ones who got it worse than us. Blacks, Mexicans, Indians—my pa, my brother, they knew the cops’d look the other way.”

Rick reeled; it was the most Daryl had ever said at once and it flowed out of him like poetry, nothing like the stilted explanations and apologies he’d offered in the past. “Fuck, Daryl,” he said, because he couldn’t manage anything else.

Daryl laughed mirthlessly. “My brother—y’know, Merle, the guy you arrested—” but he didn’t sound particularly miffed about it. “He was in the army, yeah? About ta turn eighteen, facin a felony charge, it was his only chance ta stay outta lockup. So off he went fer basic, I was jus’ a little kid then. Well, Merle he gets a weekend up in Fort Bragg fore he ships out ta the Middle East, an’ it’s the best fucken time a his life. Women love a jarhead in uniform, don’t matter he was trash back home. Merle, he’s pullin left an’ right, real nice chicks, nuthin like the sorry whores back home. Rich little bitches who get off on stickin it ta their daddies by goin with army guys. An’ that aint the half of it.” He lit a cigarette. “Merle, he goes out in uniform, an’ old ladies are rollin down their car windows ta say ‘God bless ya, soldier,’ an’ strangers buy him drinks at the bar.” His voice had gone harsh and ragged. Rick, staring at him open-mouthed, let the car drift onto the shoulder. Hastily he veered back into the lane. Daryl didn’t react, just tossed his half-smoked cigarette out the window and absently lit another. Billie was panting, her tongue hanging out of her mouth.

After a moment or two, he continued. “So then Merle comes home, dishonorable discharge for drinkin an’ druggin on active duty, an’ it’s all gone. No more old ladies, no more free beers, no more blonde cunt. Good times over. Now he’s back ta bein jus’ another worthless Southern redneck. It turnt him hateful. Worse’n before, even, ’s why I don’t hardly ever visit him in prison, cos now it aint jus’ the blacks or the queers. ’S me, too, anybody who got a better shot than him, an’ that’s damn near everybody.” He sighed heavily. “But none a that matters ta the assholes in the restaurant. Folks who only gotta class or two on me at best, clingin ta respectability with the skin a their teeth. Scared ta see the slippage. Knowin it’s only a coupla mistakes, a little bad luck, standin tween them an’ me. They’re the ones _I_ hate, fucken sanctimonious self-righteous assholes.” He flicked away his cigarette and rolled up the window. “Take the next exit.”

Rick was speechless. It didn’t happen to him very often, loss for words, but Daryl had stunned him into silence again. He had long suspected that Daryl thought and felt a great deal more than he ever let on, but Daryl exercised such iron control over himself that Rick had started to lose hope he would ever share that closely guarded part of himself. Still waters ran deep, he could see that with one look into Daryl’s odd mercurial eyes. But now he had reason to believe Daryl understood the world a good deal better than he did.

He took the exit and at Daryl’s direction turned right on the county road. “Maybe you should run for office,” he joked weakly as the trees closed around them.

Daryl scoffed. “Aint never voted in my life, man,” he said. “Jus’ don’t wanna be a dalek, ya know?” He combed his fingers through Billie’s ragged coat and stared out the window. Rick assumed he was depleted from his extraordinary outburst, but Daryl must have been more alert than he realized because he abruptly commanded Rick to pull over.

“Hop out,” he said. “Time ta go off the grid, Grimes.”

Around back, Daryl unlocked the cover and started pulling things out of the truck bed. He gave the dog some water. While she lapped eagerly at his feet, he handed Rick a backpack and slung another over his shoulder, then he pulled out the crossbow Rick had glimpsed briefly back in the King County motel room.

“Are you taking me hunting?” he said eagerly.

“Trackin,” Daryl corrected him. “Dunno what we’ll find round here.” He hefted the crossbow and looked it over, deftly checking all the mechanisms. Rick knew nothing about make and model when it came to bows—all he could discern was that it was big and black and mean-looking—but in a strange way the weapon completed Daryl. Like he had been missing a vital limb all along, but Rick hadn’t noticed until it was restored. The muscles on his arms bulged when he pulled the string back to check the tension, and Rick got a little hard at the sight of him, biceps straining, pink flush that spread from his cheeks down his neck and disappeared under the collar of his shirt…

“You don’t use a gun?” he asked, trying to distract himself because Daryl looked too intent and focused to lose time on a quickie.

“A gun?” Daryl looked at him scornfully. “One shot, an’ ya scare off all the animals fer miles. Bow don’t make a sound.” He whistled, and Billie scampered in front of him, tail wagging. “Ready?”

“Yeah,” Rick said. He had been scanning the area for some sort of path, but Daryl simply plunged into the undergrowth. He was about to ask how they’d find their way back to the car and then thought better of it; this was Daryl’s world, and he knew what he was doing.

He thought _he_ was doing a decent enough job following along. He tried to place his feet exactly where Daryl had put his, and he’d managed not to trip over anything. But Daryl stopped and looked back at him critically. “What the hell ya got on yer feet, Kojak? Brick weights?”

Rick looked down. He was wearing his customary off-duty cowboy boots, comfortable and broken in. “They’re just boots,” he said defensively, but Daryl shook his head and stomped back over.

“Cowboy boots?” he said disbelievingly. “No wonder yer makin such a racket. Aint got a lick a traction either, I bet.”

Rick _had_ been slipping a bit on the densely packed carpet of pine needles, but he didn’t feel like admitting it.

“Look.” Daryl hitched up the leg of his cargoes to show his heavy work boot. “Looks hardcore, but ’s got a crepe sole, see? Step’s lighter, but aint gonna go slidin all over the place, neither.”

“Duly noted,” Rick said, beginning to feel like a very subpar Cub Scout, and Daryl smirked.

“Jus’ do yer best,” he said condescendingly, and set off again.

Maybe the cowboy boots weren’t doing him any favors, but he did become more attuned to the noise he made moving through the trees. He began placing his feet more carefully, not just mimicking Daryl but also inspecting the surroundings for himself. He looked for twigs that snapped underfoot and avoided dry leaves that crunched when he ploughed through them. Focusing on the ground, sometimes he forgot to duck for overhanging branches and they lashed his face, leaving shallow scratches across forehead and cheeks. Daryl and Billie trotted on ahead of him, sure and silent.

Then Daryl held up his arm and they stopped. “Whatcha see?” he said, squatting down and gesturing for Rick to follow suit. Rick examined the ground where Daryl was indicating, and even he recognized the hoof prints. “Deer tracks,” he said, and Daryl rewarded him with a little smile.

“That’s right. She passed this way, less than an hour ago.”

They picked up speed after that. Nose to the ground a couple yards ahead, Billie was the first to find the pile of deer scat, which Daryl inspected closely and pronounced that they were gaining on the doe. Rick could feel his senses firing with excitement. He’d never done much more than isolated fishing trips with his father and grandfather when he was young, with little inclination to hunt as an adult. But this was different. Daryl slipped through the pines like he was part woodland creature himself. Gone were the slouch and hunched shoulders he hid behind in public; his body was supple and upright, every movement rippling with confidence and assurance. There was something almost magical about him, and Rick felt a kind of privileged awe to be in his presence like this. His heart was thudding, he could tell they were close by the position of Billie’s ears and the swiftness of Daryl’s stride.

Suddenly Daryl ducked behind a tree and motioned for Rick to join him. Together they peered around the trunk. The doe stood before them in a small clearing, grazing peacefully. She hadn’t caught their scent yet. Rick could hardly contain the adrenaline coursing through his body. His fingers itched for a gun that wasn’t there. Daryl’s crossbow still dangled from his shoulder, uncocked and unloaded. He nudged his arm and nodded at the deer, raising his eyebrows.

“Nah.” Daryl leaned close, his mouth warm against Rick’s ear. “We don’t need her. Too much meat an’ nowhere ta store it on the road. Be a waste. Jus’ wanted ta show ya, thought ya’d like ta see her.”

They watched the doe amble around the clearing for a few more minutes. Then the wind must have changed because abruptly her head shot up and she darted away, white tail flashing. Rick sighed, a little disappointed. “I was hoping to see you shoot that thing,” he said, remembering how the muscles in Daryl’s arms had flexed when he pulled back the string.

“Cheer up, Kojak.” Daryl jostled his shoulder. “We’ll scare up some small game fore the sun goes down.”

There was jerky and dried fruit and water in the backpacks; true to his word, Daryl had brought everything they needed. They ate side by side on a fallen log, the dog at Daryl’s feet. Rick closed his eyes. A new kind of peace was stealing over him. Out here, he wasn’t a cop or an ex-husband or a part-father. He didn’t have a gun or a badge, and there was no wedding ring on his finger. There were no photographs of Shane on the wall; his phone had lost reception a long time ago. He fetlt like a stripped-down, lighter version of himself. And beside him was Daryl. Warm, solid, unyielding. The dark sweep of his eyelashes across his cheek.

“Can I kiss you?” he said.

Daryl spat out a gnarly bit of jerky and fed it to Billie. “Don’t gotta ask,” he said gruffly, but there was something shy in his gaze. He bit his thumbnail and winced when it bled, wiping it on his jeans.

“We’ve been doing things sort of backwards, haven’t we?” Rick said. “It started so fast, when we just…”

“Fucked,” Daryl supplied, sucking on his hangnail.

“Yeah. We didn’t start getting to know each other til after.”

“Not really accustomed ta havin an ‘after,’” Daryl said. He was staring at the ground. “Doin the bike act, I was movin towns every coupla days… Sure as hell wasn’t gettin ta know any of em. Didn’t want to, either.”

“But this is different?” Rick said, trying to quash the question into a firm statement and not quite succeeding.

“This is different,” Daryl reiterated simply.

It seemed like enough; Rick leaned in. But Daryl turned his head, so he only caught a graze of cheek and a mouthful of hair.

Daryl grimaced. “Shit,” he said. “I got no clue what I’m doin. Comes natural enough when we’re doin—other stuff…” His thumbnail was back between his teeth. Rick caught his hand and pulled it away, letting go when Daryl’s fingers remained stiff in his. He was learning not to touch or distract him when there was still something he was trying to say. “But when I’m thinkin clear, workin up to it feels damn near impossible.”

“Sure, that’s fair,” Rick said, remembering the first time they had faced one another in Daryl’s trailer. How he’d been frozen to the spot, until a rush of desperation and desire sent him careening into Daryl with a kiss that was more like a collision. “But some times… Kissing isn’t just for sex. It can mean all sorts of things.”

“Yeah?” Daryl’s stare turned challenging. “Show me.”

So Rick did, with a soft shallow kiss that made his insides ache with longing. Daryl’s hand came up to cradle his face; he scooted closer on the log until their thighs were touching. But nobody deepened it, there were no teeth and tongues and they didn’t paw at each other through their clothes. Rick thought it was the nicest kiss they’d ever shared. When they broke apart Daryl’s eyes were sparkling, so maybe he thought so, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aristotle said Plot trumps Character.   
> Not in this story.   
> I hope the paucity of Plot isn't sending all of you into a stupor.


	10. back of a car

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for falling off my schedule. I'm a full-time student with a full-time job, and life... intervened. I'll try to do better with the last few chapters.

Still tingling from the kiss, he took down several rabbits in quick succession. Clean kills, one arrow apiece. Rick protested that he’d hardly got to see the crossbow in action, it all happened so quickly, but Daryl said he’d show him how to use it tomorrow. The sun was already low in the sky, and they had a long trek back to the road. Rick was learning to walk more quietly, even if those damn boots still sent him slipping and sliding over uneven surfaces. With the shadows lengthening, Daryl dropped back to walk beside him. He caught his elbow several times when he stumbled, and soon he was touching him for no reason at all. Shoulders brushing, palm lingering at the small of his back. Maybe he was growing bolder, maybe it was just easier in the dark.

He was elated by the success of their expedition. For most of his life, his skill with weapons and his affinity for the wilderness were the only parts of himself he could take pride in. He’d never had reason to share his private self, his best self, with anyone. Not before he met Rick. Giving Rick a glimpse of his world was a calculated risk, but Rick had proven himself a keen learner. They settled into the silence together.

They emerged onto the road a half-mile south of where they’d left the truck. After they’d been tramping along the dusty gravel for a few minutes, Rick cleared his throat. “Daryl?”

“Mm?”

“How’d you feel about skipping the motel and staying out here tonight?”

“Hell yeah,” he said.

When they reached the pickup, he drove them a ways further until he found an overgrown, unfinished driveway that led nowhere. A good spot, quiet and secluded. He’d thought about it, of course, camping out with Rick under the stars. But he’d been wary of dragging civilization out from under his feet too quickly, so it warmed him that Rick had made the suggestion. He jumped out of the cab, Billie springing after him, and started unloading supplies from the truckbed. He set up the small propane cooking stove and assembled his pots and pans. Rick looked surprised, impressed even, so Daryl didn’t tell him that if he were alone, he would have skewered the rabbits over an open fire, and that the rabbits probably would have been squirrels. He didn’t want Rick to think he was a complete savage.

Hovering behind his shoulder, Rick winced slightly when he set to gutting the rabbits, but didn’t look away. So he explained what he was doing, step by step, and Rick nodded, watching attentively. “Wanna lucky foot?” he said, holding up a dismembered paw, and Rick grimaced. “Kiddin,” he said, tossing it to the dog. “That’s the dumb kind a superstition.”

“What’s the smart kind?” Rick asked and he shrugged, not sure the man was ready to hear about his chupacabra yet.

He grilled chunks of rabbit meat in the pan while he waited for the water to boil. Then he tossed the meat and a packet of soup mix into the pot. Extravagant camping fare by his own standards, but he worried Rick would find it rudimentary, or worse, revolting. He grabbed a six-pack from the truck and slammed it down between them. A familiar line formed between Rick’s brows; no doubt he was replaying the events of last week’s drunken explosion in his mind. Daryl occupied himself with the cooking. He sloshed the rabbit stew into two tin bowls. He hadn’t brought silverware, so they had to slurp the broth and eat the meat with their hands. After a moment’s hesitation Rick followed his lead.

“It’s good!” he exclaimed. “Real good. Practically restaurant-gourmet.”

“ _Gourmet_?” Daryl snorted. “Wouldn’t go that far, Kojak.”

“No, it’s…” Rick fished out a chunk of rabbit and chewed it thoughtfully. “Satisfying,” he concluded, smacking his lips a little ostentatiously. Daryl rolled his eyes and reached for a beer. He took a long gulp and set the can down. No chugging, no shotgunning tonight. Getting out of Dodge with Rick was everything he’d hoped; he wasn’t gonna fuck it up by getting shitfaced. Rick would never know how high the stakes of this trip were for him, and pulling it off… well, it was euphoria mixed with resignation. The euphoria was simple, the resignation less so. He could hardly articulate it to himself. Him and Rick getting closer meant he was leaving behind the person he had been for almost thirty years. The nobody, the malcontent, the unattached drifter. His outline had been nebulous; now it was solidifying around responsibilities and relationships and _Rick._ He couldn’t be nothing anymore, and it surprised him, how much it hurt to let go of nothingness.

But looking at Rick, blue eyes gleaming in the moonlight, wavy hair standing up every which way… He wanted to be something. He wanted _them_ to be something.

_Fuck it_. He drained his beer and popped open a second, passing Rick another as well. Then he rolled to his feet and rummaged through his pack. He found the sleeping bags and laid them out on the truck bed, zipped together to make a single bedroll.

“C’mere.” He beckoned. “Bring the beer.”

Three beers apiece wasn’t enough to get drunk on, but it made them warm and loose. By the end of the second they were both naked. He ran his fingers through the soft down on Rick’s chest. Rick had hair where he had little. Chin, chest, stomach. The contrast fascinated him. Rick’s hand was curled possessively around his ankle. He wasn’t quite sure where it was leading, all the quiet, gentle touching. The _looking._ It wasn’t the usual momentum gathering that led to hard, driving sex, but it turned him on, in a way he’d never been turned on before. He kissed Rick’s neck and rested his forehead against his shoulder as Rick’s fingertips played up and down his bare back. Not lingering on the scars, but not avoiding them either.

He’d wanted to take Rick off the grid; well, now _he_ was off the grid too. He’d managed to guide them through the mechanics of sex adeptly enough, but he was adrift in the new realm of feelings they’d entered when they agreed _this is different._ He rubbed one of Rick’s stiff nipples between his thumb and forefinger as he tried to find the words. “Yer the best sex I ever had,” was what came out, and he groaned in embarrassment. “Fuck, I didn’t mean…” He screwed up his burning face, mercifully still hidden against Rick’s shoulder.

“So I’m _not_ the best sex you’ve ever had?” Rick’s voice was teasing.

“Shut the hell up, man.” Talking was a bad job, so he proposed something more tactile. “Suck ya?” he offered, letting his hand skate lower on Rick’s stomach. The muscles leapt and quivered under his touch.

“I thought I’d blow _you_ ,” Rick countered. “I mean, I could use the practice. I know the first one wasn’t very good.”

“Best I ever had,” he said staunchly, lips twitching.

“You were practically steering me by the ears,” Rick reminded him.

“Jus’ so ya wouldn’t impale yerself.”

“You probably came out of sheer pity.”

He laughed, pulling himself upright so he could swat at Rick’s face. “Didn’t,” he said. “Came cos it was _you_.”

It was only the truth: the sight of Rick between his thighs, full mouth stretched around his dick, that alone would have fueled a lifetime of wet dreams. But then there was that eager, erratic rhythm, the single-minded determination, the look of surprised delight on Rick’s face when he came… Daryl had never seen anyone so happy to have a mouthful of his spunk.

Rick was watching him steadily, his words resonating silently between them. _Cos it was you._ That was the whole point, wasn’t it, that this was what it was because they were who they were, and because of alchemy or chemistry or biology or whatever, they _worked_? So even bad sex was good sex and he wouldn’t have traded that clumsy blowjob for anything in the world.

He said all that without saying it, and Rick understood it without having to say he understood.

“So that’s a green light?” Rick said after the moment had passed. “You’ll give me another shot?”

It was a game now, the stakes dissolved, so he shook his head. “Figure I owe ya,” he said. “Kinda cheatin, wasn’t it, makin ya sit on my face an’ do mosta the work.”

“Got another idea,” Rick said. Reaching for Daryl’s palm, he traced a number on it with his finger.

“No fucken way, you aint serious!” His eyebrows shot up towards his hairline and he stared at Rick disbelievingly. “That’s Kama Sutra shit, that aint for grown men ta do on each other.”

“We’re exactly the same height,” Rick pointed out, voice muffled like he was trying not to laugh. “So we’re kinda perfect for it, actually.”

“Grimes, you’re outta yer mind,” he declared, but the idea was growing on him. Stupid and juvenile, yeah, but kinky enough to make his dick twitch with interest. He pushed Rick back with two hands on his chest, ready to wrangle them into position, but then he paused. Last night he’d been afraid to let Rick fuck him without maintaining his own steely control over the situation. And Rick had proven that fear unfounded, just like he had all the other fears. So now he took his hands off Rick and sat back on his ass. “Go on, then,” he drawled. “You figure it out.”

But Rick wanted to kiss first, so he settled into that. Melted, really. He scooted closer between Rick’s open thighs and hooked his legs over Rick’s. Their cocks bumped together and he groaned into Rick’s mouth. Wanting to fuck him, wanting Rick to fuck him, either way, so long as it was fast and hard. But that was how he’d always done it, rushed and impulsive, hurtling towards completion at warp speed. Rick wanted it different tonight, and he was willing to give it to him, _we’ll try it your way this time._

Rick put him on his side, curled gently inward like a comma, then settled close beside him in reverse. Rick’s mouth descended on his cock before he had time to reflect on the weirdness of the configuration, face to groin, and his own startled gasp was loud in his ears. He leaned forward and sucked Rick into his mouth, feeling a graze of teeth against his cock as he did so. Rick grunted something that sounded like _sorry_ , but he was too lost in a maze of sensations to register it. He knew he’d get swept away if he focused on what Rick was doing, so he concentrated on the cock in his mouth. Bobbing, licking, sucking, dragging his tongue along the pulsing vein underneath. His mouth was overflowing with saliva but he didn’t have room to pull off, so he let it run down his chin.

They were slippery as seals, not a dry inch between them as they writhed and rocked and choked on each other. He could hardly feel the chilly night air against his skin. Everything around him, everything he could touch and taste and see and hear and smell was _Rick_ , devouring all his senses. He’d never been so intertwined with anybody, ever. Rick’s growing beard scratched against his balls, driving him into a frenzy. He was all animal now, hardly any human left, just a rising crescendo of _Rick Rick Rick_ —

He came without warning, spasming and jerking. Rick’s cock slipped from his lips as he panted desperately, riding out the shockwaves. Rick was still sucking him, sucking every last drop out of him. He felt like he was hallucinating, spinning mindlessly out of orbit, as he lowered his own mouth again. Rick was making high-pitched breathy sounds that turned sharp when he trailed his fingers between his asscheeks and nudged around his entrance. Rick came then, with a howl that inspired Billie to give an answering yowl of her own, and he caught most of it, the rest spilling down his chin and onto the blanket below.

He mustered what little strength remained to him and turned around so he could collapse beside Rick. The man’s eyes were closed and his chest heaving; he could see a smear of his own cum drying in his beard. He licked a finger and started rubbing at the spot. Rick’s eyes fluttered open. “Hey,” he said.

He snorted, _chatterbox,_ and planted a sloppy kiss on his mouth.

The tangle of blankets and sleeping bags beneath them was damp with sweat, and he couldn’t countenance the prospect of re-dressing and climbing under. “Gonna sleep bare,” he announced, voice coming out in a hoarse rasp. He settled down on his front and Rick, still sprawled on his back, pressed closer. He found a dry blanket to toss over them, then he draped an arm over Rick’s chest and fell asleep so quickly that he didn’t hear the dog leap softly onto the truck bed and curl up at their feet.

* 

They hit the road early next morning, filthy, sore and stinking. At first he couldn’t look at Rick without blushing—did we really do _that_?—but the embarrassment faded once they were rattling north again in easy companionable silence. It was probably eleven o’clock before either of them spoke a single word aloud. He let Rick clamber over him to take the wheel for a bit. Billie curled up on his lap when he was settled on the other side. He rolled down the window and lit up, resting his arm on the sill.

He reckoned they’d clocked twelve or thirteen hours on the road, meandering this way and that, drifting west and then course-correcting back east. Rick had been asleep when they crossed the Virginia state line, but he’d have known without the signs. There was a humming in his bones that started off low but gained in volume the further they drove. He felt like a dog testing the limits of its electric fence, one step closer, then another, tensing in anticipation of the shock.

There’d be other times to square off against the Mason-Dixon. The South was in his name and in his blood, and he was tired of fighting with himself. They grabbed sandwiches from a Subway somewhere in northern Virginia, and when they got back in the car he turned them around. Rick seemed to be in agreement, knitting their fingers together and squeezing. “I always liked driving south better,” was all he said. “Feels like going downhill, you know?”

He took Rick hunting again in the afternoon. Showing him how to hold the crossbow was really just an excuse to feel him up and grind against his ass. Rick never got much of a feel for the bow: he couldn’t seem to keep his fingers out of the flight groove, and the few arrows he managed to fire off went wildly astray of their target.

“Give me a gun, though,” Rick said, apparently concerned Daryl would think less of him for not mastering the difficult weapon on his first try. “I’m the best on the force.”

Daryl decided not to tell Rick about the time he’d outshot a marine sniper for a wager that involved an antique Civil War rifle and a gram of china white. “We’ll do some target practice back home,” he said instead, bumping his shoulder against Rick’s. The words _we_ and _home_ felt foreign on his tongue, but Rick just nodded eagerly, taking them for granted.

“I’d like that.”

Maybe it was the blow the crossbow had dealt to his pride, but when he mentioned eating squirrels as a kid, Rick latched on to the idea like a dog with a bone. “And you don’t usually use a propane stove, do you? That was preferential treatment, right?” Rick demanded, and he shrugged. “I wanna do things your way,” Rick insisted. “You think I’m this lily-white city boy, but I can hold my own. King County aint Atlanta. I rode horses and everything in the academy.”

“The academy?” Daryl braced his foot in the stirrup and re-cocked the bow, grunting with effort. He’d slept funny last night and his shoulder twinged.

“Police academy,” Rick elaborated.

“Bet that’s come in real useful.”

His sarcasm wasn’t lost on Rick. “I’m not saying I could survive out here without you, but c’mon, man.” Rick straightened his shoulders and struck a Paul Bunyan pose. “Gimme the real deal.”

So he shot two squirrels and showed Rick how to build a small campfire in the woods. Then he roasted the stringy meat over the flames. It was only a couple mouthfuls at best, but Rick took his time chewing, like he was trying to parse out the flavors. His eyes were watering by the time he was through, but he managed to get it all down. Daryl was impressed. Squirrel took some getting used to, and his own taste buds had shriveled up a long time ago.

They’d only been back on the road a couple minutes when Rick suddenly barked at him to pull over. He screeched to a halt and Rick flung himself out of the car, making a run for the trees.

He waited a few minutes to let the man have his dignity, and then he got out of the pickup and ambled after him. It didn’t take long to establish that the squirrel had given Rick a violent case of the shits, so he went back and fetched his emergency roll of toilet paper. He wasn’t gonna let _Rick_ go wiping his ass with poison ivy.

While Rick voided his bowels, he stretched out in the truckbed with Billie and enjoyed a peaceful smoke. The sun was bright but a gentle breeze lifted the hair off his forehead and cooled his sweaty skin. A kind of contentment was stealing over him. Wrong, maybe, given Rick’s predicament, but there it was. The weather, the open road, the imminent proximity of the only person he’d ever wanted to stick around…

When Rick eventually rejoined him, he was pale and shivery. Daryl watched for signs on the interstate and took the exit for the first motel he saw. “My fault,” Rick assured him through gritted teeth when he returned with a room key. “You warned me, I didn’t listen. Squirrel is probably… one of those things you gotta build a tolerance for.”

Despite Rick’s protests, he got him settled on the bed, tugging off his boots and helping him out of his jeans. Then he bought him a Sprite from the vending machine and set off in search of something he could eat.

It surprised him how naturally it came. Taking care of Rick. Sure, he’d got Merle through countless hangovers and withdrawals, but he hated doing it and never considered himself particularly adept, either. His brother’s displays of weakness were all manipulation anyway, calculated to sucker Daryl into finding more money, more drugs, more booze. Rick’s stiff upper lip wasn’t an act; he obviously hated being incapacitated almost as much as Daryl did. The man was adaptable and resilient, perfectly capable of soldiering through his discomfort without a word of complaint. He could have allowed Rick his pride and pushed on, but he didn’t see the point. Rick didn’t have to suffer to earn his respect. He’d done that a long time ago.

Daryl was far gone and he knew it, standing in line at the supermarket with a box of saltines, a loaf of bread and some peanut butter clutched under his arm. It was probably the most domestic thing he’d ever done. And suddenly, he was fighting with everything he had in him to keep Merle from rearing up in his mind, right there in the middle of the supermarket. He was stronger than Merle this evening, but only just. He must’ve looked entirely deranged by the time he made it up to the counter because the cashier gave him a nervous look and wrinkled up her nose at the smell of him.

Rick was doing better when he got back, sitting up in bed and flipping through the motel’s few TV channels. “I think I got rid of it,” he announced, fiddling with the remote and not meeting Daryl’s eyes.

“Well, keep drinkin,” he said gruffly, refilling the water glass and tossing the saltines on the bed. “An’ try these first.”

“I got food poisoning from the first meal Lori ever cooked for me,” Rick said, after he’d eaten some crackers and more color had come back to his face. “It was embarrassing, for both of us. But I think this is worse.”

“Why? I aint yer wife.” He didn’t mean for it to come out harsh and there was a flicker of hurt in Rick’s eyes.

“Well, exactly,” Rick said, crumbling a saltine between his fingers. “You aren’t legally and spiritually bound to take care of me, you gotta do it out of the goodness of your heart.”

“Aw, shut the fuck up Grimes,” he snapped. “You’da done the same fer me. Aint a big deal.”

“I’m just trying to say thank you.”

“Sounds more like you’re apologizin. An’ ya know ya don’t gotta,” he added, in case Rick still thought he did. “When I said I aint yer wife… I meant more like, I aint some squeamish housewife. Don’t bother me none if you got the runs. When I was a kid, hell, I lived in the woods so much, I probly shat liquid til I was twelve.”

“You _lived_ in the woods?” Rick echoed in his cop voice, all serious and menacing, though by now Daryl knew him well enough to recognize the menace wasn’t for _him._

“Forget it.” He waved his hand; this wasn’t the time for Rick to go careening off into one of his rages. “Jus’ keep eatin yer damn crackers.” He unscrewed the jar of peanut butter and dipped his finger in. “Keep them saltines down, an’ I’ll let ya have some a this, too.”

When he crawled into bed alongside a sleeping Rick a few hours later, he pulled the other man snugly against his chest. Tired of pretending closeness was an accident of restless slumber. The next morning they slept late, which was to say they made it past sunrise. They showered (separately, at his insistence) and got back in the pickup. He drove; Billie sat on Rick’s lap this time. He wasn’t in any hurry, taking the most scenic route he could find, but by nightfall they were back in King County. They didn’t discuss it, but somehow it was mutually agreed upon that they’d go back to his trailer tonight.

He shrugged out of his clothes, all of them, glad to be done with the sweaty shirt clinging to his back every time they fooled around. Then he lay down and pulled his knees back against his chest. Eyes slitted, scarlet with exposure, he told Rick what to do with his fingers and Rick did it, gentle and intent and focused. Quickly catching onto the tricks, playing his balls and lapping at his dick to keep him distracted. He was breathing shallowly by the time Rick had him ready. Rick asked him how he wanted it and he thought about it for a bit. “Spoons,” he said at last, but Rick didn’t know what he meant so he spelled it out for him: “We’re on our sides, right, you behind me. Fits together like spoons. Big Dipper-Little Dipper? What, I gotta draw you a diagram?” He rolled onto his right side and Rick lay down on his right side too, scooting forward until his body was flush with Daryl’s. “Put your leg between mine…” Rick slipped his leg between Daryl’s knees, propping Daryl’s leg up onto his own. Their bodies slotted together, tight as, well…

_Spoons._

They moved slowly. Rick didn’t have much leverage so they settled into a gentle rocking motion. It was like lying in a boat at anchor, stirred ever so mildly as water lapped against the sides. He drifted. His mind was blissfully blank.

He came almost as an afterthought. He knew Rick had, too, because he was warm inside as well as out. He was too tired to reach for a rag. They slept.


End file.
